It had always been just the two of them, just Sam and Dean.
They were only boys when they met; Dean was seven, and Sam was four. Their fathers worked together as mechanics and owned their own shop, and the boys grew up there together. Sam had always been a bit quiet, and Dean always a bit too loud, but there was something about their relationship that brought out the best in each of them.
They were always the best of friends, in spite of age gaps and contrasting personalities and frequent arguments and being the thorn in the other's side. They fought fiercely and loved fiercely until a friendship wasn't enough for them anymore. Then they fell in love.
Sam was fifteen, and Dean was eighteen, and they kissed for the first time in the middle of Winchester Autoparts and Repair. Dean tasted of the whiskey bottle he'd been stealing sips from, Sam like the citrus mints that he popped like pills. Two conflicting flavors; one perfect mix. Sam had never been kissed before and he'd bumped Dean's nose with his own, and Dean had ended up on the receiving end of a hefty punch to the shoulder over his inability to stop laughing.
Dean had called Sam an asshole, and that had been that.
They'd begun to grow together then, two halves of the same whole. Dean matured as Sam did, and Sam learned how to laugh a little more. They'd drive Dean's truck out into the middle of nowhere just to sit in the bed alone together, and Dean took to reading for pleasure. They learned to fight less and reserve it only for the serious things. Sam no longer would pull a face when Dean made a joke, and Dean learned not to roll his eyes when Sam would suggest that they study together.
They were the same people as they always had been, but they were different together. They learned from each other, and built off one another, growing together like one separate entity.
They were together for three years, and then Sam fell out of love.
He was just shy of nineteen; a recent high school graduate with the promise of a Stanford education on the horizon. Dean had assured him that long distance could work, but all Sam saw was the future rather than the present or past. He was meant for greater things, he could feel that in his bones. He was destined to be more than just the son of a mechanic who often drank too much and expected his only son to follow in his footsteps.
Dean, however, was not.
He was already working in the shop when Sam left, and he drank as often as his father did, and he rented out the area above their garage to use as a tiny makeshift apartment.
Sam had a scholarship, a full ride. He had a future full of wealth and promise and residences with more than just one bedroom. He had an entire life laid out for him on a gold plated path, and he'd turned down it without one single hesitation.
Sam had been eighteen, blinded by the promise of things he could only imagine, and he'd thrown away the only future he'd ever really needed.
/
When Sam returns to home to Laurence Kansas approximately five years later, he finds that many things have stayed the same, yet many things have changed.
It had always been the two of them, just Sam and Dean, but now there is Sam, and there is Dean, and there is Dean and Castiel.
Castiel has been, according to Sam's father, Dean's partner for just under three years now. He's a handsome man, tall and thin with dark hair and bright blue eyes, and he smiles up at Sam from a photograph that sits in his father's living room.
It's not surprising to Sam that Dean's face still decorates the Wesson home. "Love him like another son," Sam Sr. used to say about him. "Queer as two dollar bills, the both of you, but I love ya. My boys."
He remains just as handsome as Sam remembered him to be; taller, and broader, with shorter hair and a few more freckles around the bridge of his nose. There's something about the way that he carries himself that makes him seem older, maybe even wiser somehow. The sight of him, even standing frozen in a photograph, makes Sam's heart leap into his throat.
How foolish he'd been to walk away from Dean, and from everything they'd had together. What a silly, stupid boy- so caught up in a lust for wealth and status, and so unaware of the things that would come to prove most important to him. He'd abandoned his life, his love, his family, his friends, everything he'd ever known, and in exchange all he'd gotten out of it was four years of fatigue, poor grades, and one too many hangovers.
He could have had happiness; he could have had Dean, who had always loved him unconditionally, and who had always given him a sense of belonging. Dean, the love of his life, who he'd thrown away like he was nothing.
Dean, who was no longer his Dean, but someone else's. Castiel's Dean. A new Dean, who is nothing more than a stranger now.
He still works down at Winchester auto, his father tells him. He took over as the owner when his father John retired, and he's grown to be, in the elder Wesson's words, one hell of a mechanic.
Sam doesn't doubt that at all.
One his second day back home in Laurence, Sam rises early to make the trip down to the garage, and he finds Dean already hard at work, bent over the front end of an old Impala.
Led Zeppelin is playing on the stereo, and there is a bottle of beer sitting on a shelf near by, and Sam is somehow comforted by the fact that there are some traces of the Dean Winchester he once knew that still linger.
There are so many things that Sam wants to say to him, so many words that bubble up in his throat, yet die on his tongue. He just stands there, frozen, obscured from sight by the hood of the car, and all he can manage to choke out is a weak sounding, "hey."
From behind the hood, there comes a beat of silence, which is followed by a loud clatter, which is then followed by an even louder string of swearing.
"Jesus fucking Christ," Dean mutters as he slams the hood down, cradling his right hand to his chest. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that."
"H-Hey," Sam says again, swallowing against the lump forming in his throat.
Dean responds with a snort. "Yeah, hi. Heard you the first time." He steps around to the other side of the car and takes a swig from his bottle of beer, wincing as he flexes his injured fingers. "Bobby had said you might be comin' back. Never thought you'd actually show up, though."
Sam shuffles a little, shifting his weight back and forth from foot to foot. "I ran out of money. Cost of living's too high out in California."
"Yeah, I'll bet."
"Look, Dean. I-."
"What the fuck are you doing here, Sam?" Dean interjects, leaning his back against his work bench. Much to Sam's surprise, he doesn't sound angry, or even mildly upset. He sounds passive and casual, much like a man who's asking a simple question about the weather.
Sam, however, stutters and trips over his words like a child who is just learning to speak. "I-I really don't know," he says, absently running a hand through his hair. "I wish I had a better answer for you, Dean, but… I don't know." He lets out a quiet scoff. "I just woke up one day and I missed… I missed everything."
When Dean does nothing but let out a small hum of acknowledgement, Sam heaves a heavy sigh. "I was an asshole, alright? I know that. I guess I just… wanted you to know that I'm sorry."
Dean pauses, beer halfway to his lips, and then he begins to laugh, frame shaking with the effort of it. "Oh, you're sorry," he sighs, letting one final chuckle pass from between his lips. "Well, that's great Sam. Good to know. I'm sure I'll rest easy now that you've told me."
Sam clenches his jaw. "You don't have to be a dick," he says through grit teeth.
"Yeah, Sammy. I don't. But neither did you," Dean responds, finishing off the last bit of his beer.
Without so much as a glance at Sam, he sets the empty bottle down on the work bench between them, wipes his palms on his jeans, and walks back into the main store, letting the joining door slam loudly behind him.
Sam stares down at the bottle in front of him, empty like all of the promises that had been made to him, and the promises that he'd made to others.
He picks it up, weighs it in his hand, and throws it against the back wall of the garage where it shatters.
Sam leaves the mess behind, and he wonders what it is that makes him so good at that.
/
Dean doesn't speak to Sam again for almost a month. He ignores Sam whenever he calls, and then he eventually blocks his number, and he simply pretends that Sam doesn't exist whenever he shows up at the garage. Sam even gets Castiel on the phone a few times when he tries to call their apartment, and Castiel always politely tells him that Dean isn't home, even though they both know that Sam can hear him in the background.
When Dean does speak to him again, it's Sam's birthday. Sam is twenty-four and Dean is twenty-seven and the ghost of the relationship that began exactly twenty years before lingers in the air around them. They're at the house of Bobby Singer, Uncle Bobby, they used to call him, and they're sitting on the back porch in silence with beers in hand, watching their fathers talking and laughing out by the grill. It's almost as if they're watching a scene straight out of their childhood.
In an attempt to make some sort of conversation, Sam clears his throat and asks, "Where's Castiel?"
"Couldn't come," Dean answers simply, tracing the rim of his bottle of beer with his finger. "He's behind in grading."
"He's a teacher?"
Dean snorts. "Professor. He teaches a class on Russian Literature at the community college. Does it matter?"
"Oh," Sam says. "No. I was just curious." Dean hums in response, staring at something across the lawn. "So... he's Russian?"
"You ever find a name like Castiel in an English book of baby names?"
"No, I suppose not," Sam says, ducking his head to stare down at the planks beneath his feet. Beside him, Dean's chair squeaks as he shifts around. "I thought I might get to meet him today."
Dean sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index fingers. "What is it that you want, Sam?"
Sam hesitates, throat swelling around everything he still wishes he knew how to say. "I don't-."
"You can't keep telling me you don't know," Dean snaps. "You're not a part of my life anymore, Sam. Hell, I'm not even here for you. I'm here out of respect for Bobby and your father."
"I know-."
"No, you don't know!" Dean interjects. He turns to Sam, eyes glinting. "You don't know anything about me, or my life, so you should just stay out of it." He pauses and runs a hand through his hair, and Sam's stomach begins to churn. "You left for a reason, right? What happened to that?"
"I miss you," Sam admits in a rush. "I miss you, Dean. I came back for you." He slumps down into his seat, dragging his fingers through his own hair. "Hell, when I was away, I dated a girl just because she looked like you. Same color eyes. Same birthday, even."
"So... what? You playin' for both teams now?"
"Dean-."
"No, Sam," Dean spits, color rising into his cheeks. He's furious; face red and eyes dark. "I'm not going to have this conversation with you. I mean, did you really expect that I would be here waiting for you? That I'd drop everything and run off with you?"
"Maybe," Sam replies meekly.
Dean groans. "Jesus, you are so naive. We were kids when we had... whatever we had. That was never going to last."
Sam clenches his jaw and squares his shoulder, sitting up a bit straighter in his chair. "We were in love," he says. "I loved you."
"You left!" Dean all but shouts. "I wasn't good enough for you, remember? You were the one who thought I was just some dumb kid. Ain't that right? That was I just some small town hick who wasn't worthy of you?"
Sam opens his mouth to respond, but a breathy wheeze is all that manages to escape him. He remembers that, saying that to Dean on the night that he'd left, head swollen by ego and by pride. Dean was so undeserving of that, of all that Sam had said and done to him. "I-I wanted it to last," he chokes out, voice shaking. "I did. I just... I didn't know it at the time. I was the stupid one, and I'm sorry."
"I gotta go," Dean says, rising from his chair.
"Don't-."
"Give my excuses to Bobby, alright? You certainly are good at doing that."
/
It takes time, months, for Dean to move past the argument at the barbecue, and then to warm up to the idea of having Sam back in town, and then it takes even longer than that for him to make some attempt at friendship.
They start off with brief, awkward phone calls and talk about their plans for that day or what they might be doing that weekend. When Sam moves into his own apartment uptown, Dean occasionally shows up on the days when Castiel teaches his night class, and he and Sam will make small talk and watch whatever sporting event happens to be on television that night. Dean will sometimes ask about Standford, Sam will sometimes ask about the garage. In time, they become comfortable enough to sit beside each other on Sam's worn out couch, to laugh and joke again, delivering playful punches to each other's shoulders.
On a Friday night in August, a few hours after Castiel leaves to spend a weekend with family, Sam visits his and Dean's apartment for the first time. There, as they sit side by side in matching lounge chairs, Sam and Dean share their first kiss in five years. Much like the first kiss that they'd shared all those years ago, it is brief and awkward, and Sam still manages to bump his nose against Dean's when he pulls away.
Dean just sits there for a moment, silent and a bit stiff, and then he offers Sam a warm smile. "Guess you haven't changed too much," he says, leaning in to bump Sam's nose right back.
"Guess not," Sam answers, turning his head to brush his lips against Dean's once more.
A week later, they fuck on Sam's couch, hard and rough and fast, Sam's nails digging into Dean's back, Dean's fingers bruising Sam's hips.
They explore with fingers and teeth and tongues, tracing lines and planes, peeks and dips, teasing, tasting, rediscovering things they haven't felt in years. Sam cries I love you I love you I love you, back arched off the couch in an elegant line; Dean groans his name, licks the hollow of his throat, nipping and biting his skin.
When it's over, they pull the blanket down from the back of the couch and spread out on the floor, fingertips touching.
"'Least that hasn't changed," Dean sighs.
Sam laughs. "That was always one thing were good at."
"One thing?" Dean snorts. "That's probably the only thing."
"Mm, you're probably right."
Dean yawns and stretches, absentmindedly scratching a spot on his chest. "This was a mistake," he finally says after a beat of silence, turning his head towards Sam.
"You don't sound too convinced," he responds, reaching over to brush his fingers across Dean's chest, down the line of his abdomen. "Besides, we wouldn't be us if we hadn't made some kind of mistake."
"There's no us," Dean says suddenly, firmly, propping himself up on his shoulder.
"Isn't there?"
"No."
Sam smiles and then, mistake or not, Dean kisses him.
/
They manage to keep things up for just under two weeks, which is far more than Sam would have ever expected. He'd half convinced himself that after the night they'd spent together, Dean would wake him up the next morning with a frying pan to the face, or something of the sort. Instead, Dean made him breakfast and laughed good naturedly when Sam teased him for being domestic. They'd sat together at the kitchen table in their boxers and had their first real conversation in months; Dean finally opened up about his life, about the shop, about Castiel- how they'd met, what kind of man he was like, how they'd fought over the incense that Castiel had brought with him when he moved in.
"He's a good man, Sam," Dean had said, taking a sip from his cup of coffee. "He understands me, ya know? He doesn't much care that I'm just some simple guy who likes beer and a good slice of pie every now and then."
Plastering a smile on to his face, Sam had answered, "You like pie a little more often than that."
"Simple pleasures, Sammy."
When they got together the next time, it was Sam's turn to talk, and he'd told Dean about Stanford and the few dates he'd gone on and about Jessica, and how hard he'd tried to love her. She'd been so wonderful, but just too much like Dean, he'd explained. Sam had laid his head on Dean's shoulder like he'd do when they were kids, and Dean had played with his hair, and then they'd laughed and talked until sunset.
They build up a relationship much like theirs used to be, and then everything falls apart when Castiel cancels his night class and returns home early one Tuesday evening.
He finds Sam in his and Dean's bed, sucking Dean off, clutching at him and rutting against the sheets, and Castiel stands there quietly with his head tilted to the side, arms folded across his chest.
"Samuel," he says, his voice shockingly steady. "This... is not how I expected to meet you."
Sam swears that the man before him actually chuckles, and his stomach gives a sort of nervous lurch. "I-."
"Would you mind?" Castiel cuts in, waving his hand in the general direction of the bed, where Sam is still hovering over Dean, and then towards the pile of clothing that's scattered about the floor. "Just for everyone's comfort."
A flush spread from Sam's back to his neck and then up to his cheeks, staining them a furious shade of red as he scrambles to redress, tossing Dean his pants in the process. "Castiel, I-."
"I don't need an explanation Sam," he says simply. "I am quite capable of understanding what's going on, believe it or not."
Sam, feeling very much like a shamed and scolded child, sits himself back down on the edge of the bed beside Dean, who's doing nothing but observing Castiel in an almost shy sort of silence.
Castiel makes his first real movement then, flexes his fists and inhales sharply, and then he asks Dean to step out for a moment- giving him this look, this tender, reverent look that both amazes Sam and frightens him at the same time. There is love there between Dean and Castiel and no matter how much Sam has tried to deny it, he sees it now, laid out naked and raw before his eyes. He immediately adverts his gaze, staring down at the fibers in the carpet as they fold around Dean's bare feet when he walks by.
"Sam," Castiel starts once the door is closed. "I'm really not angry with you, you know."
Sam doesn't lift his head, but he raises an eyebrow. "I'm not," Castiel insists. "I understand that you love Dean, and you think you're doing the right thing."
That time, Sam does lift his head and he tilts it in a manner mimicking Castiel's own position. "So he's told you about me, then? About the two of us?"
"Of course he has."
"Oh."
"We don't have very many secrets," Castiel says nonchalantly , picking at his fingernail. "He told me when you came back to town, and I figured something like this would happen. I'm not surprised."
Sam licks his lips. "Do you have that little faith in Dean, then?"
"Oh, no. I have complete faith in him. I didn't think I could trust you."
"Guess I proved you right."
Castiel nods. "I suppose you did."
Sam sits there a minute, and then when he rises to leave, Castiel reaches out and punches him square in the jaw with enough force to make it crack. Head throbbing, Sam immediately covers his mouth with his hand, already feeling a warm trickle of blood beginning to flow from his lip. "What the fuck?"
Castiel responds with a simple shrug. "I said that I wasn't angry with you, not that I wasn't angry at you."
"That... that doesn't make sense," Sam says, wiping his hand across his chin.
"You're sleeping with my partner," Castiel says icily, finally with the edge that Sam had been expecting, flexing his fingers.
Sam wants to protest, wants to avoid taking any more punches, but when he puts himself in Castiel's shoes, he realizes that a few good hits seem to be the least of what he deserves. He squares his shoulders, screws up his face into some semblance of a smile. "Fair enough."
/
When Sam leaves the apartment that night, he leaves with a black eye and a split lip, and he loses his dignity, part of a tooth, and he loses Dean.
He and Castiel had finally given Dean the choice they'd both be waiting for him to make, much like two masters with one dog, and Dean, always loyal to a fault, had chosen Castiel. Sam wasn't surprised, given the affection he'd seen exchanged not long beforehand in the bedroom, and he'd bowed out graciously. Dean had apologized, of course, and had placed a tender hand on his shoulder and promised he would always love him, but he just couldn't be with him. Didn't trust him, he'd explained, and Sam could understand that.
He wouldn't trust himself either.
He never sees Dean again after that, and he leaves Laurence again just a few weeks later. It never had been the place where he belonged, especially without Dean.
Sam does keep in touch with him through phone calls, occasional letters, birthdays and Christmas cards- things of that nature. They're always friendly, yet clipped, and Sam can almost sense Castiel's watching eyes through the paper. Not that he blames him, of course.
Hope you're doing well, Dean will write. Know that I'm thinking of 'ya.
Sam responses in much the same way, signing his name and a quick, tightly scrawled thinking of you too.
Always; he's always thinking of him. Dean smiling and Dean laughing and Dean scratching his nose and Dean scowling and Dean yelling at him and Dean stretched out beneath a car and Dean drinking a beer and Dean kicking his feet out from beneath blankets; Dean Dean Dean Dean Dean.
But not his Dean, anymore, he reminds himself. Castiel's Dean, who still does all of these things, but is not Sam's Dean, and who now only thinks of Sam- brief, occasional, passing thoughts.
Just so you know, Sam will say to himself sometimes. Just so you know, Dean, I'm thinking of you.