Dream a Little Dream of You
"I shouldn't have come."
Dean looks up from his feet and into the still face of his kid brother. And it is his kid brother; in this place and time, young Sammy doesn't look a day older than thirteen. His face is clear and free with no signs yet of the anger that will boil and spill only to infect everything in a few short years. Dean, on the other hand, is on the plus side of thirty and feeling every minute of it.
Yeah, he doesn't understand it either.
"I shouldn't be here," Dean repeats. "I – I don't want to not be here, but it'd be right, y'know, Sammy? It'd be the right thing."
"But I like it here, Dean," says Sam, and there are tears caught in his eyes. He hangs his head, disappointed but not surprised. "I like it here."
It's the closest they'll ever come to really talking about it.
Together, they lay back in the grass, which is knee-high and already turning brown. Dean looks away and up at the clouds overhead and breathes in the sound of his brother's soft crying beside him. "Yeah, Sammy, I know what ya mean."
Dean can see Sam where he's sitting beneath the tree from his spot on the other side of the field and starts to make his way towards him. It's the only tree – large; old; the ideal playground for two small boys wiling away the lazy dog days of summer. The only reason other than Sam that Dean knows these are all dreams is because of this tree and this field, the real one of which is still back in that small Virginia town, circa of '95. The one they are in now is just pretend.
Young Sam is sitting on one of the tree's huge protruding roots reading the battered copy of The Lord of the Flies that he has to analyse for school the next day, flipping the pages idly and contently ignoring Dean.
"What are you doing?" he asks quietly as he approaches. Sammy looks up as if he's only just noticed his big brother's presence and puts the book down with its spine pointed at the sky.
"Homework," he says mildly. "What does it look like, Dean?"
"No," Dean says. He frowns. "I mean, what are you doing y'know, in my head?"
Sam smiles, one corner of his mouth quirking up, and repeats, "Homework." One look at Dean's face gets rid of the smirk and he sighs, "Waiting for you, of course. What took you so long?" He shoves his book into a frayed backpack lying by his feet and stands. "We're late. Dad's gonna be pissed."
And if Dean hadn't already known that he was dreaming, this last statement of Sam's would surely have done it. Dad's been dead a long time. "What?" He croaks.
But his brother isn't listening; he's already hopped to his feet. "Come on, Dean," Sammy cries, running past him through the dying grass, glancing back over his shoulder at Dean all the while his ridiculous mop of brown hair is flopping in the breeze. "Dad's waiting!"
Without thinking twice, Dean follows.
The dreams continue like that for a few weeks. Every night Dean will remember having dinner, tucking Ben into bed, and then slipping in beside Lisa in the safe darkness of her bedroom. Every night Dean will close his eyes and open them to see a teenaged Sam under the big tree in the field.
And every night so far he has failed to ask his brother the one question for which he really wants an answer. He's determined that tonight will be the night.
"Sammy ..." Dean begins. It's a condemning sound.
Sam looks up from his book – this time it's Tolkien for pleasure, the nerd – and stares curiously at him. "Yeah, Dean?"
"Why are you here?"
He tilts his head, frowning deeply, and states as though it should be obvious, "Duh, because you are."
"How are you doing?" Dean asks. "I mean, where you are, I know that it's not ... it's – Sammy, I know."
Sam's whole body grows stiff, unresponsive, and Dean curses himself because besides how to put his foot really far into his mouth, the other thing he really does know is what it's like where the adult-aged Sam is now. For some things, there just aren't words.
"I ... I don't ..."
Sam stutters, looks away, looks at Dean for a second, and looks away again. On the outskirts of the field, storm clouds are circling and Dean prays that the rain holds off. But Sam can't choke the words out and eventually, Dean does what he has always done best.
"It's okay, Sammy, you don't have to say. I'm sorry – I'm sorry I brought it up. It's okay."
The rain clouds circle closer and closer; a fork of lightning shoots down from the sky. Sam curls onto his side and refuses to make eye contact with Dean. Dean pokes his brother's side, tries to tickle around his ribs, and recites lame old jokes the real Sammy had liked when they were kids until Sam reluctantly smiles again.
The lightning stops and the clouds dissipate like wisp into the air.
Some days, Sam won't answer Dean's questions. He's not being mean or cruel about it, it's more like he honestly hasn't heard a word Dean had said, until Dean says just the right thing and then it's as if he's reading off of a script.
On those days, when he feels like he can't do anything right, can't think of what will be just the right thing to say again, Dean will sit there quietly watching Sam because he doesn't have the strength to look away.
There's no reason or pattern to those times, and Dean hates them with a viciousness that terrifies him. However, this is not one of those days.
Sam is being moody and impossible, and whenever Dean tries to get him to open up about what's going on in that geek brain of his, Sam squares his jaw and shakes his head in that way that he has and closes up even more.
God knows he's not one for chick flicks; don't even get him started. Dean knows his brother though, knows every quirk and every little bitch thing about him, because Sammy's always been his priority and Dean never even knew himself half so well. And he knows that this, right now, this is really Sammy-speak for his little brother wants to talk, and he's just waiting until Dean catches up.
So Dean seats himself down, makes himself comfortable, and waits. He hums Metallica in his head to keep himself amused, and watches as Sammy taps his feet and huffs and scowls his way impatiently into submission.
Finally, the emo-angst must all become too much because out of nowhere Sam exclaims, "What are you doing, Dean?"
"Shouldn't that be my line?"
"I'm serious, Dean, what are you doing? And why?"
Dean sits up straighter, Enter Sandman cutting off right in the middle of the second verse. He looks incredulously at Sam. "Why am I doing what?"
Sam paces in front of him. His face makes it clear that his heart is shattering a little more with each step that he takes. He walks back and forth, towards and away from Dean, towards and away, caught between his two eternally strongest desires. "This!" He gestures at Dean and Dean flinches, thoughts flashing involuntarily onto his clothes, too big from not eating right; the dark circles on his face, from too little hours of sleep; his whole breaking down, middle-aged body mocking him. "Playing house with some woman and her kid! Doing barbeques and working construction and driving some stupid ass truck while your car – our car – sits collecting dust in a garage!"
Dean stands too, the fury rippling over him in waves. He towers above his brother and it's wrong, so wrong, that he even can. "Because you asked me to, Sam! It was practically your dying wish! You might as well have dropped me on their doorstep yourself!"
"But you forgot about me!" He whirls around, his bottom lip pushed out and trembling in classic Sammy-pout. "You weren't supposed to forget about me, so why did you?"
The words hit Dean like a physical slap to the face. He stumbles back because Sam's wrong, right? Completely, idiotically wrong! As if Dean could ever ... would want to ... there had been a time where he would rather sell his soul than be without Sam. And sure, he remembered the lies and the pain and the freaking damn apocalypse, where Sam gave himself because the both of them couldn't accept that any dickwad angels might know better than them, more than he remembered the before. But really, who would blame him?
And yet ... yet when was the last time that he had really remembered Sam, the Sam that he was talking to now? Dean would happily have taken up his place in Hell again if only to prove that wasn't true.
"What would you have had me do, Sammy? You told me –"
"Maybe I told you not to save me, but that didn't mean that I thought you wouldn't try! I thought you would drive yourself sick trying!" Sam's voice turns hoarse and he rubs his eyes, like he's trying to scrub the pain away, as he mutters, "And now it's too late."
Dean doesn't want to know what that means.
"Can I ask you something?"
Sam's attention never wavers from the sky above them as he shrugs.
"Why are you so young?"
"You mean, why are you so old?" says Sam, smirking.
Dean pauses. "Yeah."
"Because you still haven't caught on yet, Dean." Sam rolls his eyes, but he's laughing as he says, "But don't worry, you will."
"What are you talking about?"
"Well ..." he says, "I suppose I can give you a hint." He rolls onto his side so that he's facing Dean under the shadow of the old tree, a single skinny elbow holding up his chin. He thinks for a minute. "Where would you say this is, Dean? Where are we?"
"Virginia," Dean answers, looking around. "In that field that we found the one summer. I was seventeen. We shot firecrackers right over there –" He points.
"So a memory. And when's the last time you were someplace else, not a memory? Like ... present time."
"I don't know."
Sam nods. "The thing about memories, Dean, is that in them, you can be whatever age you want."
"But I like it here, Dean," says Sam, and there are tears caught in his eyes. He hangs his head, disappointed but not surprised. "I like it here."
It's the closest they'll ever come to really talking about it.
"And I want you here with me."
God's not the only one who knows Dean wants that too. His days and nights are so dedicated to Sam now that he's having a hard time remembering anything else. The way he sees it, he has a lot to make up for. The Impala, Lisa, Ben, sex ... they've taken a back seat. Dean can't even say for sure when the last time he paid attention to anything else was, because all that's keeping him sustained, all that holds him tethered securely to the ground, is here.
The heavy weight that replaced his old amulet when he tossed it lifts. The shards that grind against the joints in his knees and the beginnings of gray in his hair disappear. For the first time since his own stint downstairs, Dean doesn't feel forty years older than his birth certificate claims. He looks beside him and sees that Sam's changing too; now he's the same age that he was when Dean let him fall. Maybe it should give Dean pause, because he's pretty sure of where he – they – are. But all he can feel is an overwhelming sense of peace where there hasn't been any for a while.
"Is this it?" he asks.
It's a vague question, but Sam appears to have understood him perfectly. "Remember what Ash said? That some people get to share. Cool, huh? I've just been waiting for you to join me."
Together, they lay back in the grass, which is knee-high and already turning brown. Dean looks away and up at the clouds overhead and breathes in the sound of his brother right beside him, exactly where he's supposed to be. "Yeah, Sammy," he grins, "I know what ya mean."
end.