runedgirl | All The Little Losses (Sam/Dean) Part 4/4

Fic title: All The Little Losses
Author name:

runedgirl
Artist name:

amberdreams

* * *
Dean comes slowly awake the next day thinking about Sam.

Not about this Sam, but about his Sam. That all this time—all the time they were together—Sam wanted more. Dean wasn’t the only one who maybe every once in a while might have harbored thoughts he shouldn’t have. Seems like, while Dean was cowardly enough that he never even let himself consciously acknowledge that desire, Sam knew it. And moved himself all the way across the fucking country to not act on it. What does that say about Dean, that he didn’t stay away—that he brought Sam back into this? Back to him?

He’s a selfish bastard; he’s always known that. Even now, he’s allowing himself to be with this Sam in a way that he’s not sure his Sam would even want anymore. Would his Sam – the real Sam – be sorry?

Surprisingly, it’s Sam who’s weird the next day. He’s not his usual flat-affect, get-things-done, matter-of-fact soulless self. It’s unnerving.

Dean is only half awake, still lost in his guilty thoughts, when he hears Sam bumping around the motel room, cursing under his breath when he nearly knocks over a lamp on his way to the door.

“Whu—?” Dean manages, but Sam shushes him.

“Go back to sleep. I’ll be back soon.”

A vivid image of the events of the night before seeps into Dean’s brain, and he decides Sam’s advice is something he should take. He rolls over and avoids reality as long as he can.

He half wakes when the door opens and shuts, then comes fully awake with the aroma of breakfast filling the tiny room.

“What’s all this?” he asks, rubbing the crust out of his eyes.

Sam is pulling thing after thing out of a large bag: breakfast sandwiches, doughnuts, a bottle of orange juice, and—unexpectedly—a slice of cherry pie. There are two large coffees on the nightstand.

“Breakfast, obviously,” Sam returns. He avoids looking at Dean, so Dean knows that Sam knows that this is weird.

“You must think I’m really hungry.”

Sam shrugs and looks away, busying himself with his breakfast sandwich and coffee.

Dean considers asking if this is about last night, but he honestly doesn’t want to know the answer, so he leaves it alone. After a while, Sam relaxes. They eat in what passes for companionable silence, and Dean suddenly misses when they had that between them for real.

Still, the breakfast is good. So is the pie.

He’s sitting there licking the last of the pie filling off the corner of his mouth when Sam apparently can’t stay quiet anymore.

“That’s really distracting.” Sam is finally making eye contact. He still looks squirrelly, though.

“What?”

“The way you lick your lips like that.”

“Well, you bought me the pie. What’d you expect? It’s sticky!”

Sam stands up and turns away; starts packing up his duffel. “Fine, fine. Are you taking a shower or getting dressed? Checkout’s in ten.”

Dean heads for the bathroom, but he can’t help but smile to himself at Sam being flustered. Not like he doesn’t know what it looks like when his lips are stained red and sticky and he licks them off. It was probably a dick move, but having Sam at a disadvantage like this—finally—is too sweet to not take advantage of.

Sam makes it pathetically easy. Dean doesn’t even try most of the time, but it seems like whatever wall Sam had up in his head when it comes to prurient thoughts about Dean got decimated by their one night of passion. He’s not exactly Mr. Charm, but he’s a helluva lot nicer, even if it is all calculated to get something he wants.

“Go get the supplies while I fill up the car?” Dean asks when they stop at a gas station, and Sam does, without even a snide comment.

“Can you go back and get me one of the Tastykake lemon pie things I like?”

Sam raises his eyebrows, but he does just that.

Another night, another motel.

“Let’s watch the Indiana Jones marathon.”

“We really need some popcorn.”

“Grab me a beer while you’re up?”

Dean’s taking advantage and knows it, but Sam just keeps letting it slide. Dean wonders how far he can push it. He’s playing with fire, not so much because Sam is eventually going to get sick of treating him with kid gloves, but because the longer he gives Sam the opportunity to act like he genuinely cares, the more messed up Dean’s going to be about all this.

Sam is still not Sam, and he’s got nowhere near the empathy that Dean’s brother had, but this approximation is a lot closer than he used to be. And that, Dean knows, is dangerous.

Halfway through The Last Crusade, Sam climbs onto Dean’s bed with the excuse of wanting more popcorn. “You’re hogging it,” Sam complains.
Dean feels sort of like he’s in a middle school drama. “You want your own bowl?”

“Nah,” Sam says, and inches closer.

Dean could stop it right now, and he knows it. He could tell Sam to get the hell back to his own bed, or throw the bowl of popcorn at his head, or just get up and turn off the TV. He does none of those things.

He sits quietly and pretends—like a middle schooler—that he doesn’t notice the way Sam’s leg is pressed against his own. That he doesn’t notice when Sam’s hand drops from the popcorn bowl to Dean’s thigh and stays there, warm and firm and solid. This new thing—Sam’s wanting—it’s the closest this Sam has been to feeling something. No matter how much Dean knows he should put a stop to it, he can’t deny that it feels good. Eases all those losses just a little.

Sam’s fingers wander higher, his thumb making slow circles against the material of Dean’s sweatpants. It’s a nice sensation. Comfort, with just a hint of arousal warming his belly. He wonders if his Sam would have done it like this, touched him so tentatively. Then he pushes that thought resolutely away. This isn’t his Sam; that’s the only reason he can do this.

Sam seems to sense his change in mood. He slides his hand up higher yet, long fingers almost at Dean’s crotch.

The popcorn bowl is a shield keeping Sam’s hand from where Dean knows Sam wants it and a big part of Dean wants it too, and Dean lets it hover there for a long moment, trying to decide whether to listen to his mind or his body.

“Dean,” Sam whispers, and the sound of his voice saying Dean’s name, so achingly familiar, makes the decision for him. He leans away to put the bowl on the nightstand, then turns to Sam.

“Yeah?”

Sam smiles. It’s not exactly soft and suffused with affection, but it’s not cold and unfeeling either, and Dean will take it. Sam leans in and kisses him more gently than Dean expects, while his fingers reach their goal and palm him through the cotton.

It’s gentle and easy for a while, to Dean’s surprise, Sam’s other hand at the back of his neck, Sam’s mouth eager and open, letting the kiss get wet and messy while he urges Dean to hardness. Dean wonders again if this is how his Sam would do it; if this is how his Sam wanted to kiss him.

Sam nips at his lower lip, then pulls away, panting. He sits up and pulls his shirts over his head, exposing planes of tanned skin. Dean reaches out without thinking, fingers combing through the curls on Sam’s chest, watching his nipples pebble. Sam pulls away, stands up long enough to strip off his jeans and kick them away, then crawls back on the bed, gloriously naked. If anything, he’s even more built now than he used to be, and Dean watches the ripple of muscle as Sam moves. He feels drunk, being able to look at Sam like this—Sam naked for him, well aware of what he looks like, putting on a show.

Sam moves slowly, all fluid grace like a panther; crawls right up on top of Dean and presses him back against the headboard. Sam’s mouth finds Dean’s again, and this time when they press together it’s Sam naked and Dean clothed. The contrast is erotic, a flip of that power differential that seems to be a turn-on for Dean no matter which direction it’s going in. He’s got a lapful of naked Sam, and that’s too much desire for him to ignore.

amberdreams bb 2020 4

They kiss more roughly, Dean’s hands all over Sam’s body as it’s offered up to him, leaving indentations in the strong muscles of his back and shoulders, clutching the cheeks of his ass and feeling him flex as he thrusts his dick against Dean’s hip.

Dean twists around and gets on top, then uses his lips and tongue and teeth like Sam did to him. Sam likes it when he bites; growls and tosses his head and swears when Dean stops, his perfect body littered with the marks of Dean’s teeth—shoulder, pecs, throat, stomach. Sam spreads his legs wide when Dean nips along his upper thighs, his skin sweat-sheened, the scent of him driving Dean mad.

Dean tires of being the one in control soon enough, strips off his own clothes to even the playing field, and rolls them over again, mouths working and hard cocks trapped between their bellies. He could come like this, he thinks, making out with Sam as their arousal builds and builds, every half-stifled sound Sam makes pushing him higher.

Sam has other ideas. He slides off Dean and leaves his own marks, alternating between nibbles and licks and bites, revisiting all those erogenous zones he learned about last time. Sam has always been a Boy Scout. One hand pinches a peaked nipple while his mouth works Dean over, and Dean hadn’t known that his nipples were almost as sensitive as his dick, but Sam seems to know. He nips and tugs and then finally, finally sucks hard and Dean sees stars, feels like he could come from this if only…

That thought gets interrupted by Sam grabbing one of his legs and shoving his knee up to his chest while still sucking hard on one throbbing nub, and Sam really is a Boy Scout, because he’s got one finger prodding against Dean’s hole and it’s slick and slippery and pushing right in.

Dean gasps and tries to jerk away, but Sam neither lets go of his leg nor stops sucking on his nipple. He leaves his fingertip where it is, barely inside. It starts to drive Dean wild, just the hint of movement, teasing his rim until he wants to cry with how much he wants more.

Sam raises his head, leaving Dean’s saliva-slick nipple aching with the sudden chill. “He wanted this too, wanted you this way, so badly. Just this, no more—for now. Just this.”

Dean finds himself nodding, and when Sam’s head bends to his chest again, his finger slips deeper inside.

It’s not something he’s done very often. Girls have fingered him, and he’s liked it way more than he expected, and a handful of times he’s bottomed for money and once or twice for actual desire, but it hurt as much as it felt good. He’s not expecting the way Sam does it, the way Sam’s long, long finger gets so far up in him that he feels like Sam fucking owns him, and then Sam rubs around until he ignites a pleasure that’s so deep and intense that it feels like Dean’s insides are melting. He whines—can’t help it—writhing on Sam’s finger, Sam’s big hand keeping his knee pinned to his chest and Sam still contorting himself to try to keep sucking on Dean’s nipple, which is so painful now he’s got tears running down his cheeks, but it all swirls together into a pleasure so overwhelming he feels like he won’t survive it but never wants it to end.

His dick is bobbing, dribbling a steady stream into his navel, and he’s hovering on the verge of orgasm for what feels like forever. When Sam finally unlatches from his chest and takes Dean’s swollen cock in his mouth, Dean comes just like that, bearing down on Sam’s finger, mouth open in a soundless scream.

Sam works him through it ruthlessly until Dean is wrung out from the inside, flat out on the bed with his heart pounding triple time.

“Jesuschrist,” Sam swears, getting up on his knees next to Dean and stripping his dick frantically. He comes all over Dean, splatters of it on his still-heaving chest and stomach, mixing with some of his own mess.

They stare at each other after. Dean tries to feel disgusted, but the post-orgasmic haze is too strong. “Yeah,” he agrees instead.

Sam brings him a warm washcloth from the bathroom, and it makes Dean’s eyes water all over again.

* * *

It goes on like that for a few weeks. They hunt better, more in sync, like their bodies have gotten back on the same wavelength, like sex is as good a way of knowing each other physically as sparring was for most of their lives.

Dean doesn’t call Bobby much anymore. There’s no answer to the “How’s he doing?” question that Dean can admit to.

In Albuquerque, a woman in a barely there tank top comes on to Sam so overtly it’s comical. And Sam says no.

In Wichita, they have a chance to lure a monster in by using Dean as bait—it’s already shown interest, and they’ve figured out it has a type. A type that’s just about exactly Dean. The plan is entirely put together, but Sam is so pissy that Dean pauses before they put it into place. “What’s up with you?”

Sam scowls. “Nothing.”

“Don’t say ‘Nothing,’ Sam. Something has your shorts in a bunch. And I can’t afford to be out there with this thing without you being dialed in, man.”

“You think I’m gonna sacrifice you again, don’t you?” Sam is suddenly looking downright angry.

“What?”

“Like I did with that vamp—you think I’m just gonna let it take you, don’t you?”

“What? No, Sam, what’re you talking about? Why? Are you?”

Sam is really angry now. “No, Dean, of course not!”

“Well, then, what is it?”

“I just—I don’t like it, okay? I don’t like the idea of it taking you, of you risking—I just. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Dean has to make a joke out of it or he’s going to take a bigger risk—one he can’t afford. “Aww, Sam, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you cared.”

Sam whirls on him and comes close to throwing a punch. “Fuck you, Dean! I don’t! I can’t—you know that! Forget it. I’m not doing this. It’s not happening.” And with that, he turns and walks away.

Dean is left stunned, with a failed monster hunt and a big headache.

That night, when Sam’s got one finger inside him, Dean makes the mistake of thinking about his Sam. How would it have felt to have Sam touching him like this, so intimate. His heart feels full to bursting just thinking of it, and fuck it, he thinks. He asks for two, and then three, and when he’s strung out and pleading and a complete mess, he sobs out, “Fuck me,” and God help him, he means it. He makes the mistake of opening his eyes and sees the look on Sam’s face, utterly broken open and in awe and almost exactly as Dean imagined it as Sam pushes in. He sees the way Sam’s eyes roll up when he loses it and hears the hurt sound he makes when he comes, like he can’t help it.

Dean keeps his eyes open to watch Sam’s face after, as they both come down, Sam slowly moving his hips, saying Dean’s name in a hoarse whisper, like he can’t believe that’s who he’s with.

Dean wakes up at three a.m. with his face wet with tears, thinking about what that would have been like with Sam, his Sam. Realizing how badly he wanted that and never allowed himself to know it, and how much it breaks his heart that he’ll never have it.

They don’t do it like that again; it’s too much for both of them, perhaps for different reasons.

By unspoken agreement, they try to kiss less when they fall into bed, but inevitably someone caves and then neither can stop.

It’s both better and worse than the hell Dean has lived in for so long, of missing every little thing about his brother. Sam is a lot more distracting now, and Dean would be lying if he said there weren’t times that Sam amuses him. He tries so hard to be what Dean wants, even if they both know that’s impossible, but there are times he comes close.

“Remember that time I tried to make you pancakes for your birthday?” Sam asks out of the blue one day when Dean is minding his own business shoveling down French toast smothered in syrup at yet another roadside diner.

“Random, but… I guess so?”

“I didn’t read the Bisquick box right, or maybe we didn’t have any eggs, but it was more like cement than pancake batter. I let you sleep in while I cooked them, and you woke up and thought the house was burning down, came down the stairs yelling at me.”

It had been an actual house they were renting, broken down and ramshackle but a house nevertheless. Dean remembers that day too.

“I tried to hurry and take them out of the pan, and they all stuck and then the whole pan fell on the floor and landed on my foot, and…”

“And you started screaming because it burned your foot and then I felt like the biggest shit in the world when I realized what you were trying to do for me.”

Sam’s recollection is notably without emotion, but Dean feels enough for the both of them. It’s one of his most painful memories of their childhood.

“You started dumping cold water on my foot while I sat on the floor crying.”

Dean nods, appetite for his French toast waning.

“You were crying too,” Sam finishes softly.

Dean shrugs and takes a gulp of coffee.

“I remember not understanding why, since you weren’t burnt. I think I—I think he—figured it out, though. Later.”

“Probably,” Dean agrees.

“Sorry,” Sam says, voice still uncharacteristically soft. “Sorry you were hurt too.”

Dean sighs. “You shouldn’t try the sorry thing, Sam. You don’t really know what it means or how it feels. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees. He toys with his bowl of oatmeal. “I think I am, though.”

Dean thinks about saying no that night when Sam crowds him up against the wall and pushes their bodies together. It’s feeling more and more dangerous, getting this close.

Sam leans in, grazes his teeth up the column of Dean’s neck, and bites his earlobe. They’re both still sweaty and smell like the road, and Dean is a twisted motherfucker because that’s an aphrodisiac like no other. He digs his hands into the bunched muscle at Sam’s back and brings his knee up to nudge Sam’s crotch, feel the erection he knows will be there. Sam smells like Sam, and feels like Sam, and sounds like Sam, and Dean is never going to be able to push him away.

The frightening thing is, he’s starting to think Sam feels the same.

* * *

In Iowa, three weeks later, Sam cracks. He’s been short-fused for days, only relaxing after they crash together at night and wear each other out.

“What the hell is your problem?” Dean finally asks as they throw their duffels down in a new motel room after a two-day hunt that didn’t exactly go smoothly.

Sam takes his sweat-soaked shirt off and tosses it to the floor with more disgust than it deserves. He doesn’t answer for a few seconds, and Dean thinks he’s going to ignore the question, but then Sam turns around. His hands are fisted, and he looks… angry?

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” Sam says, “and it’s distracting me. You’re distracting me.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“Nothing, you’re just—you’re you, is all!”

“You’re not making any sense. Did you get hit in the head?”

“No, Dean, I didn’t get hit in the head. I’m talking about you. I should never have come back to find you. I don’t even know why I felt like I had to do it. It was him, in my head, couldn’t leave well enough alone, couldn’t stand taking a chance on you being killed. I mean, I could have, but he—he couldn’t!”

“Sam, calm down. You’re not making any sense.”

Sam sits down hard on the bed and puts his head in his hands for a second like he’s trying to compose himself. “I didn’t feel this way before! I felt fine, Dean—and now I don’t, and that’s all your fault!”

Dean sits down too. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was witnessing actual emotion in his emotionless not-brother. It makes his stomach flip with uneasiness. “How is it my fault?”

“I don’t know!”

Dean waits, not knowing what to say or if he wants to hear any more of what Sam’s saying, anyway.

Sam scrubs his hands through his hair and sighs. “It’s like you woke him up… some kind of memories, I don’t know. I shouldn’t have touched you. It’s too much what he wanted, and now…”

“Now what?”

“Now it’s all I can think about. Touching you again. I mean, I’ve had tons of sex since I’ve been back, Dean, but it’s never felt like… like that.”

“Well, thanks, I guess.” Dean tries to laugh, make it a joke, but Sam’s not having it.

“I don’t think I can hunt effectively with these… these thoughts in my head.”

“You’re serious. You can’t hunt because you’re too horny for me.”

Sam drops his eyes. “Maybe I should leave.”

And just like that, right on cue, Dean’s stomach bottoms out, the familiar existential panic of losing Sam kicking in, even though these circumstances are absurdly different. “No!” he blurts out without meaning to. This isn’t Sam; he shouldn’t care.

“You still want me to stay? Even if I’m not him?”

“You know I do.”

Sam shakes his head. He almost looks sad for a second, then steels himself. “It’s not the smart thing to do,” he says. “I can’t hunt like I need to with all these…” He waves his hand around, like he doesn’t want to put the word to it. “These desires.”

And that is the moment Dean decides to go to Death and risk it all to get his Sam back. Because he knows, suddenly and with horrifying certainty, that he’s starting to feel something for this Sam. Enough that the old familiar rush of fear at the prospect of Sam leaving is making his stomach flip. And he also knows, from the look in Sam’s eyes, that sooner or later he’s going to lose this Sam too.

There’s no choice, really, when Death asks him if he should restore Sam’s soul or Adam’s. Dean should feel bad about that, and maybe he will later, but all he can think is that he needs to get Sam—his Sam—back. Of course, Sam protests, not trusting the wall Death has promised to keep his trauma at bay, but Dean insists. It only convinces Dean more that he did the right thing when he learns that Sam went so far as to try to kill Bobby while he was out playing Death. So much for Dean’s delusions that Sam was starting to feel something.

The days after, when Sam lies unconscious, are excruciating. He tries to cling to his certainty but can’t help wondering whether it was really worth it to sacrifice the Sam he had for the slim chance of getting his Sam back. Has he lost them both?

It’s impossible to explain to Bobby, who is still understandably pissed at being the target of attempted murder, that soulless Sam had his good qualities. Or that Dean was, God help him, developing a soft spot for him. He’ll never admit that to anyone, and not knowing what Sam will remember if he ever wakes up keeps him awake at night.

Dean spends the nights arguing with himself, drinking too much, missing Sam. It’s always that: the one constant of his life, missing everything about Sam. The way he smells, the dimples when he smiles, the kaleidoscope of colors in his eyes. The puppy-dog eyes his brother perfected by the time he was three. And the understated version new Sam had down pat by the time Dean tried to destroy him. He misses them both now.

Maybe he didn’t deserve to have either of them.

It’s on that maudlin thought that Dean is stuck when Sam walks into Bobby’s kitchen, eyes wide and glistening, making a beeline for Dean.

All the little things he missed slot back into place. There’s not a second of doubt, as Sam falls into his arms, that this is his brother.

“Sammy,” he whispers, hands buried in Sam’s hair. It’s the one thing he never gave to the other Sam.

“Dean,” Sam whispers back, clinging to his big brother like he’s five years old again.

It’s a long time before either of them can let go.

Sam’s memory is spotty, and Dean is reluctant to fill in all the blanks, especially the ones that are only between the two of them. Or between him and the other Sam. Bobby’s there most of the time, still giving Sam suspicious glances; Sam luckily hasn’t remembered that part of the past week yet.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says over and over, apologizing for everything he did when he didn’t have a soul, even if he doesn’t remember much about what those things were. “I need to figure out what I did so I can make up for it,” he insists, but Dean shakes his head.

“None of that was your fault, Sam. You didn’t ask to come back without a soul. And you can’t go messing with that wall in your head, Death warned me about that. Just leave it alone, Sam, okay? You’re back, and you’re you, and it’s… I’m…”

He has to turn away, shocked at the emotion that’s bleeding through in his words. He’s not sure he can ever explain to Sam how agonizing it was to be with him all this time and yet not with him at all.

And so far, Sam hasn’t remembered all the distinctly nonbrotherly things Dean did with the version of Sam who wasn’t—didn’t feel like—his brother. Dean’s not sure how he’ll deal with that conversation if Sam ever does remember. He believes what the other Sam said, that his brother wanted more, but he also knows that neither of them would ever have acted on it. Now that Sam is himself again, why wouldn’t he want to keep it that way?

Both of them are eager to hit the road and put some distance between them and Bobby, who seems equally relieved to have Sam out of his house.

Dean has to keep looking over at Sam as he drives, reassuring himself that this is his Sam.

“I’m not gonna disappear,” Sam says finally, but there’s no censure in his voice. This Sam knows how Dean feels, because he feels too.

“You were gone a long time, Sam.”

Sam nods. He knows what that’s like, lost Dean a thousand times to the Trickster’s cruel machinations and had to live through Dean’s time in hell. If anyone knows, Sam knows.

“It must have been weird, huh,” Sam says forty minutes later. “Having me here, but not having me here. What was I like? You know, without my soul?”

Dean bites his lip. What can he say? You were a coldhearted asshole most of the time, but you brought me breakfast and pie in the morning and wanted to fuck me through the mattress every night? You were afraid to have your soul back and I made you do it anyway?

“That bad, huh?”

“Nah, you were just… different, you know? Not the sensitive, empathic young man I know and love.”

Sam snorts. “Probably not as much of a pain in your ass.”

“Oh, you were a pain in my ass, believe me.” Dean wants to laugh at his own bad joke. He feels oddly guilty, though, like he killed the other Sam to get his own back and he shouldn’t be this glad about it.

“I guess some things just transcend having a soul or not,” Sam says and leans his head against the passenger side window, falling asleep in minutes.

Dean sneaks a lot of looks at him. His fingers ache to reach over and push the strands of long hair off Sam’s face, tuck them behind his ear. He’s grown used to touching when he wants… and being touched back.

It strikes him, and he smiles with the bitter irony of it, that there are new small losses now, ones he never anticipated. When they get to the motel tonight, Sam won’t crowd him up against the wall and kiss him senseless. He won’t tease Dean until he’s ready to beg and then make him come so hard he sees stars. He probably won’t bring back a slice of cherry pie for breakfast in the morning—in fact, he might just sleep in.

You’re a selfish, spoiled prick, Dean Winchester, he tells himself. You got what you wanted—you got your brother back—and now you’re gonna whine about not getting laid on the regular or having someone bring you breakfast?

Sam wakes up as they’re pulling in to the Comet Motel off Route 73.

“Sleep well, princess?”

Sam has a strange look on his face, but Dean figures someone who just got his soul back is allowed. He checks them in, and they move their stuff into room 24. Sam sits down on the bed away from the door and scrubs his hands through his hair.

“You okay?” Dean’s stomach is turning. He just got Sam back, but maybe this didn’t work after all. Maybe Sam’s not okay. Maybe his deal was a mistake…

“I remember,” Sam says, and he looks up at Dean.

Dean can speak Sam fluently; there’s no mistaking what he’s remembered.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry, Sam. There’s probably no explanation I can give, but I just—he—you—didn’t seem like. Like you. Like my brother. That’s no excuse, I know.” The panic hits him like a wave, and he sits down hard on the other bed. Oh god. Sam’s going to leave him after all.

“Dean, hey,” Sam is saying, and he reaches out to put one hand on Dean’s knee, pats him reassuringly. “Hey, I can read your mind. I’m not going anywhere, okay? God, I just got back!”

Relief hits just as hard, and Dean doesn’t try to hide it. “I promise not to stalk you or be a creep or anything. I swear, Sam.”

Sam shakes his head. “Did you forget that I was a willing partner, Dean? Did you think you were forcing me to do something I didn’t want to do?”

“No, but it wasn’t you. I get that.”

Sam is smiling now, looking at Dean like he’s a goddamn fool. He slides the hand that’s on Dean’s knee up just a little higher. “Even when I lost my fucking soul, I was still hopelessly in love with you. Don’t you think that means we’d be fools not to give this a chance?”

Sam’s lips feel just the same.

Fin