AN: I swear, all I want to do lately is write in this universe just for the love and physical affection.
Third in my Wyoming series, preceded by "Mama Put my Guns in the Ground" and "Blessed are the Pure in Heart."
No slash. Future!fic.
Gimme Shelter
Sam picks up the beagle puppy on a Wednesday afternoon, when he gets off at the hardware store. It's cold and pouring rain, and he ducks his head as he steps out from under the porch roof at the veterinarian's office, black felt cowboy hat on his head and the puppy bundled in a blanket cradled in his left arm. He gets into his truck and puts the puppy on the bench seat next to him, saying "Stay there" in a sweet voice as he backs out of the parking space. He's going to pick up Cas from work first, then Dean. He's still thinking of names for the dog, determined to pick something proper before Dean latches onto something ridiculous.
The beagle is the last of a litter born in Pinedale. Sam saw the original owners' ad online weeks ago and convinced Dean to finally let them have a dog. The puppy wasn't fully weaned until recently, which is why Sam had to wait. The owners were gracious enough to drive the dog down to Marbleton for Sam because they have friends there anyway. Sam paid them two hundred dollars for the puppy according to the price agreed upon prior to pick-up, and he would've parted with more if they'd asked, once he saw the dog in person. He's been waiting for a dog since he and Dean moved into their house.
Sam pulls up to the front of the daycare on the grounds of St. Anne's Parish and honks his horn. Castiel comes out with his baby blue scarf wrapped and tied around his neck, the color of his eyes intensified by it. He peeks through the window of the passenger door at the puppy huddled in the blanket, before he gets into the backseat of the truck. The angel pushes the blanket down from the dog's head to pet it.
"What do you think?" Sam says, as he gets back on the road. "Cute, right?"
"Yes," Castiel says in a happy tone. "I think Dean will take to it."
"Whether he does or not, the dog's here to stay."
Castiel sits back in his seat and buckles his seat belt. "He will."
Dean has never been big on animals, at least not pets. He's not used to having them around because the Winchesters could never keep pets when they were kids, while they lived on the road. Sam started wanting a dog around the age of eight, and ever since, he and his brother have argued about dogs. Sam loves them. Dean thinks they're a pain in the ass and not worth the trouble. They're too messy, too needy, too high-maintenance, too expensive to keep, too destructive, on and on. Dean never would've let Sam get a big dog. Sam had to make his case for the beagle: he assured Dean that they're small dogs and don't shed and there's plenty of room on their property for a beagle to run around and dig without having to disturb the house. Actually, when it came right down to it, Sam had to plead a little—like he was a damn kid all over again. Finally, Dean threw his hands up and said fine but if the dog was trouble, Sam could move into the barn with it.
Sam and Cas get out of the truck when they reach Big Lou's Garage and Salvage, hands in their jacket pockets. The garage doors are up and the white lights are on inside. Dean's inside, wearing his charcoal grey jumpsuit with his name patch sewn into the left breast, pant legs tucked inside his work boots. His hands are dirty and his face is flush, relaxed and happy because Dean feels best when he's got work to do. Big Lou, a pot-bellied man about ten years older than Dean who's never without his garage baseball cap, is sitting on a stool with his back against the wall in the left corner of the garage. He doesn't move when Sam and Cas step into his view. Dean lights up a little when he sees them. "Hey, guys."
"You ready?" Sam asks.
"Yeah, I think so." Dean looks back over his shoulder at Lou. "You need me for anything else before I go home, Lou?"
"No, sir," Lou says. "Lorraine and I'll lock it up in a minute."
"Hi, Lou," Sam says, lifting a hand in greeting.
"Sam," Lou says with a nod.
"Let me get my coat," Dean says, before turning on his heel and disappearing into one of the back rooms. He emerges with the leather car coat on over his jumpsuit, pulling his black knit beanie onto his head. "See you tomorrow, Lou," he says as he waves at his boss. Falling in with Sam and Cas on the way to the truck, he asks Sam if he got the dog.
"You get to ride with him in your lap," Sam says.
Dean frowns a little, but by the time they get home, he's in love.
They name the dog Shooter.
After Dean got out of Purgatory, Sam stayed a hunter six years longer than he wanted, before they finally quit together. He could say that the events of the supernatural prevented him from quitting any earlier, but the truth is he just can't live without his brother. He sure as hell can't live without his brother, while Dean hunts alone. Sam's just glad that Dean eventually felt done with hunting too because he doesn't know how much longer he could've stuck with it. And he can't imagine what he would've done if Dean died on the job, really died. Sam would've carried that outrage the rest of his life, assuming there was any left of it.
Civilian life isn't what he and Dean individually daydreamed about when they were younger, but it's still pretty damn good. Sam has no complaints. Not even about the miserable winters in Wyoming or his two part-time, low-paying jobs or his serious lack of a sex life. Sam's made looking on the bright side his personal religion since they settled down. He likes the house and town and working honest jobs and his truck and the friendship he has with Leah and Cas living next door. He loves the land he and Dean live on. He loves lazy weekends and sleeping in the same bed every night and the peace he feels that was totally unattainable when he hunted. And he loves living with Dean—not out of the Impala and motel rooms, not on the run, not in a constant state of blood and death and turmoil, but having a home with Dean. A real home.
Sam doesn't know if they'll stay where they are forever—he figures the harsh winters aren't kind to old men—but into the foreseeable future, he's happy where he is, doing what he's doing. He's realized since they settled down that he never needed a wife and kids and some fancy nine to five job to be happy. He just needed to be safe and at peace. A house with Dean in Wyoming where there's nothing evil in sight meets all his needs.
Friday night, Sam's working at the saloon until close, which he only does two weeks a month at most. Dean comes in with Cas after the garage closes, they leave around eight o'clock to grab dinner at The Brown Owl two blocks down the street, then come back just after nine to while away the rest of Sam's shift. Dean could've driven the Impala into town today and gone home with Cas right after work, but he decided to go ahead and carpool with Sam because it's been weeks since he spent a night out on the town. Dean and Cas sit at the end of the bar nearest the door so they can chat with Sam, just like always. Dean orders the local beer on tap, and Castiel nurses water with lemon because he only likes to drink alcohol when he's upset.
The saloon's moderately busy, the way it always is on a Friday night. There are a handful of women but more men, the kind of working men who wait all week for Friday night so that they can come here to unwind with their buddies before going home to their wives or lovers for the rest of the weekend. Only a few of the patrons are young twenty-something's; most of them are Sam and Dean's age or older. Men in flannel plaid shirts and heavy jeans and dirty work boots, men with beards longer and thicker than Sam's, big burly men who are built their muscle on the job and have never stepped into a gym in their lives, men who smell of chewing tobacco and cigarettes and cheap beer and Jack Daniel's and the outdoors. Men of few words or drunken words. Some of them in cowboys hats, some of them in baseball caps darkened with age. Women with weathered faces. Bleach blondes and natural brunettes, colorful cowboy boots not made for working. Women with cigarettes in their fingers and a drink in those same hands. Women in jeans with rhinestones glittering on the back pockets. Women who left their first husbands, women with grown children born when they were barely old enough to order a drink, women with laugh real and loud. Some of them are here with men they're coupled to. Some of them are here with friends.
Dean likes spending Friday nights here because of the people: he knows most of them personally, all of them by face and name. He doesn't need to come every week and when he is here, he still spends more time talking to Sam or Cas than anyone else, unless some of the guys he's friendly with show up. But when he comes, he always enjoys the atmosphere. He smiles, he's easy in his body, utterly loose by the time he leaves. He told Sam once that he really likes seeing people he's familiar with happy and safe and alive, after all the Winchester brothers went through.
Sam just appreciates being one of the bartenders when Dean's drinking, so he can keep an eye on his big brother.
The crowd's all regulars until just after ten, when three new faces step inside. Sam pauses to look at them, which causes Dean and Cas to turn their head over their shoulders. The three men are tall with facial hair, younger than Sam and Dean—in their thirties, and they're not dressed much differently than every other man in the saloon. But something about them sets off Sam's trouble detector, not just the one he developed as a hunter but the one he's developed as a bartender who's had to perform damage control on belligerent drunks and assholes a couple times in four years. The strangers take a table along the wall across from the bar, and Ramona the waitress immediately crosses the room to take their orders.
"You seen em before?" Dean asks Sam.
Sam shakes his head.
"Being a stranger is not, by itself, cause for suspicion," Castiel says, sipping at his water.
"Yeah, we'll just keep an eye on them," Dean says casually and polishes off his beer. "Sammy, pour me a whiskey, will you?"
Sam flips a clean glass onto the bar, drops a few ice cubes in it, and fills it halfway with whiskey. He doesn't like Dean having more than two in one night, especially if Dean has beer too.
"Do you think Shooter's all right home alone this long?" Castiel asks.
Sam and Dean debated what to do with the puppy before they left home this morning. They decided it made more sense to leave him.
"Guess we're going to find out," Dean says. "We put one of Sam's dirty shirts in the kennel, to calm him down."
"It's too soon to leave him alone for a whole day," Sam murmurs. "But I just don't see how we could've brought him with us. You don't need a puppy under your feet at the garage, and I didn't want him to be any trouble here or at the hardware store."
"I could keep him at the daycare next week," Castiel suggests. "I'm sure Annie wouldn't mind, if I asked her."
"Maybe."
Quarter to eleven, after a few rounds of drinks, the strangers get up and move to the pool table. Two of them play a game, and as soon as it's done, Dean hops off his stool.
"Where are you going?" Sam asks.
"Gonna play," Dean says. "See what these guys are made of."
"Dean."
"What? Chill out, dude. It's pool."
Sam and Cas watch as Dean walks over to the table and introduces himself to the three strangers. The saloon's too loud for Sam to hear any of the conversation, but he's going to watch his brother like mother bear in hiding. Dean's only had one tall glass of beer and one whiskey, but Sam has no idea what the strangers ordered to drink or how much of it. And around these parts, more men carry weapons than not, which makes Sam especially uneasy on late nights at the saloon. He's got a loaded revolver attached to the underside of the bar if things get out of hand, but he sure as hell doesn't want to use it.
Dean plays the tallest stranger. Sam and Castiel both watch. Dean's smiling and laughing and making conversation, but while his opponent talks back, the man's not half as cheerful. The other two stand around the table silent, watching the game. The stranger wins and Sam's pretty sure Dean let him. In forty years, Sam hasn't met more than a few people better at pool than his brother. And it's not like Dean to lose on purpose, unless he's in the middle of a series of games and hustling…. Sam waits for Dean to come back to the bar.
Instead, Dean's got the triangle on the table and starts filling it with balls. Another game. And the men break out their wallets.
"Shit," Sam says.
"What?" says Castiel.
"He's gonna hustle them."
"What does that mean?"
"He's going to cheat them out of money."
"Has he done it before?" Castiel asks.
"Millions of times. He used to put food on the table like that."
"Then, he'll win."
"That's the problem."
From the look of it, Dean throws the second game too. The tallest stranger remains his opponent. They start playing a third, with more cash on the table rim. They're drinking beer out of bottles now. Sam's almost too distracted by the scene to pay proper attention to the men sitting at the bar.
Dean and the stranger play quickly. Dean wins the third game and the fourth. The stranger's not even pretending to be good-natured anymore. They start a fifth game. A few other men are standing nearby and watching now.
"Do you think he's drunk?" Castiel asks Sam.
Sam knows the angel's referring to Dean. "No. He's just got that warm, feel-good sensation."
"Sam," Castiel says softly.
Sam looks at him. "What?"
"If you're this uneasy, maybe we should ask Dean to stop playing."
Sam shakes his head. "I'm not going to embarrass him. He'd be pissed. It'll be over soon. We're closing up anyway."
The crowd's already shrunk and more people are starting to trickle out. Sam helps Paige, the other bartender, wash glasses and wipe the bar down. Sam looks up at the pool table at the sound of a ball cracking, sees his brother grinning brightly and holding up his hands in victory. He leans his cue against the table and goes to shake his opponent's hand…. But the other guy just stares down at Dean's hand with a grim facial expression. Sam's fixed on the scene now. Dean drops his hand after a few seconds, smile flickering on his face. The last of the spectators step away, and Dean goes to collect the cash lying on the high table near the head of the pool table.
His opponent jerks Dean back by the shoulder and says something to him. Sam and Castiel are watching like there's nothing else in the room, Castiel's face open with vigilance and Sam wound tight and ready to spring. There's a shuffle of Dean reaching for his money, the stranger shoving him, Dean warning him and reaching again, the other two strangers hovering closer, then Dean's opponent finally throws the first punch, catching Dean on the chin.
It's fast after that, too fast for anyone to make much sense of things until they're done. The three strangers gang up on Dean, who moves like he's more sober than they are, and Sam's leaping over the bar and rushing at them. Castiel is slower, still avoidant of violence and conflict of any kind, but eventually he's pulling the third man away from the other four and hitting him and getting hit back. Sam puts the second man down after fighting him for a minute or two, while Dean and the tallest stranger knock over tables and chairs and throw each other against a booth and the wall. Sam and Castiel move to help him, but Sam holds out an arm against Castiel a few paces short of the two struggling men. Giving his brother a chance to finish it.
But before Dean can, Sam moves in and punches the stranger in the face, while Castiel drags Dean away from them. Sam stands next to the unconscious stranger, looking down at the shape of him on the floor and catching his breath. The room comes back into focus, urgent instinct to protect his brother clearing from his mind. He looks over his shoulder at Dean and Castiel, the two of them leaning into each other and panting. Blood on their faces. Blood on Sam's too.
It wasn't until the Winchesters had spent about six months living in their Wyoming house that Sam was able to look back on their lives as hunters and see how intertwined with danger and death they had been. When he could accept that this settling down thing was really going to be permanent this time, he was finally in a frame of mind to reflect on the past and why he had wanted to quit hunting as much as he did.
What shook him to the bone was the pain—the sheer amount of pain and suffering that he and Dean had lived through, so much of it that Sam couldn't process how they'd survived it at all, let alone in physical and psychological wholeness. They had each suffered more than any human being Sam could think of, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Some people in the world still don't even believe Hell exists, and the Winchester brothers had done time there before they even hit thirty. They'd lost each other more than once, buried every person they'd ever loved or cared about in such a short span of time. And neither of the brothers ever lost his mind—unless they count Sam's hallucinations—or succumbed to heartbreak. Sam was flabbergasted. When he sat down and took a serious inventory of his and Dean's hunting experiences, he was truly speechless, as if all those memories were someone else's and he was just hearing about them for the first time.
Sam and Dean could never stop to even contemplate the pain. Forget healing. Sam had a four-year break in college, when he was too young and too angry to do anything except ignore his childhood, Dean had a year of civilian life with Lisa where he privately carried the agony of knowing Sam was in Lucifer's Cage, and Sam had a year when he didn't know where Dean had vanished to or if his brother would ever come back. They had never stopped hunting under happy circumstances before, never quit together, never quit knowing that they could count on staying retired before Wyoming.
How many times had Sam and Dean been stabbed, sliced, cut open, clawed, bitten, poisoned, beaten, thrown into walls and floors and glass and tables, broken a bone, sprained a muscle, been shot or electrocuted or strangled or possessed? How many times had they been a breath away from losing an eye, a hand, a leg, their fingers, their head? How many times had they been hospitalized because it was too bad to deal with on their own? How many times did they just deal with it on their own? What had their souls gone through in Hell? What did it do to them emotionally to bury Jess and Dad and Bobby? What did it do to them to know their father sold his soul for Dean, that Dean might have to kill Sam, that Sam was the walking tainted since infancy? What did it to Sam to see the hell hounds shred Dean to death? What did it do to Sam to know his brother was in Hell for him? What did it do to Dean to watch Sam throw himself into Hell, Lucifer still inside him? What did it do to Dean to know that he was the First Seal? To Sam, that he had betrayed his brother and the whole world for a demon that played him? What did Purgatory do to Dean? What did Castiel's betrayal do to him? How could either of them begin to measure their guilt? Or their loss?
Pain had been their normal. Realizing that made Sam want to hug his brother and never let go. It made him determined to prevent any more pain—physical or emotional—from falling onto Dean. It made Sam decide that he would die before going back to hunting again.
Dean's slumped over the toilet in his and Sam's bathroom on Saturday morning, throwing up liquid. Castiel's already sitting down next to him, blue eyes full of concern and sympathy. Sam shuffles into the doorway and stands there leaning into the jamb, holding Shooter in his arms. Cas glances up at him, then back at Dean. Dean has his left arm straightened and resting on the toilet seat, his face down on his bicep.
"How long you been in here, Dean?" Sam asks.
"Not long," Castiel says. "I woke up when I heard him moving around."
Dean dry heaves, bracing his right hand on the toilet seat, and Castiel reaches over to rub his back.
"Is there blood?" Sam asks.
Castiel peeks into the toilet and shakes his head. "No."
Sam blows out a breath. "Shit. It could be a concussion or stomach trauma or a hangover. But I didn't think he was that drunk. And if he was, he would've thrown up sooner."
"The doctor said he didn't have a concussion," Castiel says. Sam had insisted that the three of them get checked out at the clinic last night, before going home. "Or internal damage."
"Could've missed something."
Dean groans. Cas is still rubbing his back, high up near the base of his neck.
"Fuck," Dean says. "They didn't."
"So you're hung over," says Sam, in disbelief.
"I can't tell. Probably not. I just had more to drink than usual and then got fucking hit a bunch of times. Doesn't agree with me."
Sam scoffs. "Yeah, no kidding." He scratches at his forehead with his thumbnail. "Maybe we should take you back to the clinic to be safe."
Dean moans again, head still down on his arm and his back to Sam. "No," he says. "Hell, no. I'm not going anywhere except back to my bed."
"If you get worse, I'm taking you."
Dean pushes himself up just enough to squint at Sam over his shoulder. "You gonna be in that shitty mood the rest of the day?"
"I'm allowed to be upset that you did something stupid and got hurt, Dean."
"Awesome," says Dean and lays his head down again.
Sam sighs. "I'll go make coffee and something light for you to eat. Cas, can you take care of him for me?"
"Of course," says Castiel.
"Feed him some ibuprofen."
Sam turns and pads in his socks down the long corridor to the kitchen, only realizing once he gets there and looks out the window that it snowed in the middle of the night. It's still snowing.
Coffee made, yogurt and granola eaten, Sam builds a fire in the living room. The house is quiet: no radio, no TV, just the sound of Sam's footsteps and the fire crackling and the men's voices when they speak. Dean lies across the big leather couch, resting on Castiel's chest and between the angel's legs, a soft plush blanket drawn over them. They watch Sam build the fire and go back and forth from living room to kitchen and bedroom. Dean's taken his painkillers, drank two glasses of water and a little coffee, and managed to eat half a dozen spoonfuls of yogurt. He rests with Castiel's arm across his chest and hand on his shoulder, his hair almost brushing the angel's chin. He doesn't feel well enough to read or focus on much of anything right now. Castiel's happy to lie quietly with him.
Sam eventually returns to the living room with a book, his leather journal, and his computer. Shooter trails behind him, tiny claws clicking on the floorboards before going silent on the rug. Sam situates himself in his big leather chair near the fire, across from the foot of the couch, wrapping himself in another warm blanket. The dog lies down on the buffalo rug not far from Sam's feet.
"Have you heard anything about the strangers?" Castiel asks.
"No," says Sam, already opening his journal with a pen in hand. "Not yet. Nobody would call early on a Saturday, especially after last night. But we'll hear from em. How's your stomach, Dean?"
"Mmm," says Dean, eyes opening and closing in a lazy rhythm. "Fine."
"Anything hurt?"
"My head and every place a dude punched me. You?"
Sam only glances briefly at his brother as he starts writing. "I'm all right." His knuckles are scraped up, his lips are a little swollen, there's a purple bruise near the bottom of his left eye, but none of it bothers him much.
"Cas," Dean says, swallowing.
"I'm all right," the angel says, his voice more gravelly than Dean's. Castiel has a cut high on his left cheekbone that bled but otherwise, nothing visible.
"'m sorry. I know you don't like getting caught up in shit like that."
"You needed the help. And you would've done the same for me."
"Bet you were scared." Dean's arm shift beneath the blanket to rest along Castiel's thigh, hand cupping the angel's knee. There was a time Dean would've given Castiel shit for being afraid of a little fist fighting, but he's grown more sensitive since settling down.
Castiel is quiet for a moment. "Not after I joined the fight."
"Well, thanks," Dean says. "Next time, just leave it to me and Sam."
"There shouldn't be a next time," Sam warns, looking up from his journal. "You're almost forty-five years old and you've abused your body enough for ten lifetimes. Don't push it."
"Yes, Mom."
"Sam doesn't want you to get hurt because he loves you," Cas says to Dean. "I agree with him."
Dean opens his eyes, turns his head against Castiel's chest to look at Sam, and says, "Yeah, I know."
Near an hour passes in silence: Sam writing, then reading his book a little, Dean and Cas lying on the couch together with their eyes closed most of the time. The fire starts to burn down. Dean says he needs to take a leak, pushes himself forward into a sitting position, and takes a sharp breath in.
"Dean?" Sam says, on his feet already to feed the fire.
"Shit," Dean whispers. He shuts his eyes for a second.
"What's wrong?"
Dean swallows and works his mouth. "My back. And my head's pounding but mostly my back."
Castiel pushes his hands into Dean's lower back without hesitating. "There?"
"Mmmm," says Dean, nodding.
"Think you can make it to the bathroom?" Sam asks.
"Let's find out."
Sam reaches out for his brother; they clasp hands, and together move Dean on his feet. They don't let go of each other as they stand there between couch and fireplace. Sam watches Dean's face. "Okay?"
"It hurts but I'm pretty sure I can walk. Just—just come with me."
Sam walks Dean slowly to the nearest bathroom, the smaller one in the front of the house. He can tell, after seeing Dean in various stages of pain, that his brother doesn't need him to hold his hand all the way to the bathroom for his body. Just for his sense of security. Sam stands outside the bathroom door for a few seconds, as Dean goes, then wanders back to the living room where Castiel remains on the couch. "I was afraid of this," Sam murmurs, too quiet for Dean to hear. "We're gonna have to tend to him now."
"Do you think it's bad?" Castiel says. "Is he going to need a doctor?"
"Doctor can't do much except drug him, and neither one of us likes being doped up for anything less than major wounds." Sam prays to God right then that Dean's back doesn't get bad enough to warrant muscle relaxants. Making his brother ride in a vehicle for half an hour to town for the clinic, especially with snow on the road, when Dean's in that much pain sounds pretty close to Sam's idea of hell. "All we can do is wait and see," he says to Castiel and himself. "If we take real good care of him now, he'll probably be fine later."
Castiel nods. "Should we draw a bath for him?"
"Yeah, I think that's a good idea." Sam turns around as he hears the bathroom door open and goes back for Dean. Sam takes him back to Cas who wraps Dean in his arms again. "Dean, I think you should soak in the tub for a while. I'm going to go fill it up, all right?"
"Sure. Probably a good idea," Dean says, body relaxing against Castiel.
Sam leaves them, the puppy following him down the corridor to the master bathroom the brothers share.
Dean soaks for forty-five minutes. The water's almost too hot when he gets into the tub, just the way he likes it, and Sam added the balneotherapy minerals this time instead of just salt. He started ordering the minerals online after doing research on treating chronic back pain the first year the Winchesters lived in Wyoming. Dean hasn't used them in the bath regularly for the last year and a half because he got better, but Sam keeps them on hand.
Lavender incense burns in the bathroom because the smell is relaxing. A few white candles provide the only light. The air is warm and humid. Dean lies in the tub with a rolled towel under his neck and his eyes closed, thanking God that he has a brother and a friend who take such good care of him. Better than he would take care of himself.
Sam and Cas wait in the living room. Sam's in his chair with the dog in his arms, while Cas sits on the couch with his elbows on his knees. He looks worried. Sam, who takes his brother's well-being just as seriously as the angel, is calm for now. Nursing Dean's back is old hat for him. Hell, nursing Dean period is second nature to Sam. "Hey," he says to Castiel.
The angel makes eye contact with him.
"He's gonna be fine. Catching the pain early is half the solution."
Cas lowers his gaze again without looking relieved.
"What are you thinking about?" Sam asks, grabbing at the skin at the back of Shooter's neck.
"The fragility of the human body," says Castiel.
Sam smiles. "I don't know, me and Dean have put ours through the wringer, and we're still going strong. For the most part."
"I don't like seeing him suffer any more than you do, Sam. I don't like seeing you suffer either. Humans—they get sick, they hurt, they die. All too easily. If I were stronger, if my power down here was what it used to be…. I could help you any time. Instead, I can only watch."
"Cas," Sam says gently. "Yeah, it sucks, but you shouldn't waste your time feeling down about it. You can do more than watch. You help, just like people have always helped each other. Can't always heal someone but you can make them feel better."
Castiel still looks somber, blue eyes downcast. None of them are entirely sure just how human he is—they reckon pretty close to completely—but Castiel assures them that he can return to heaven any time and be restored to his full angelic capacities when he does. "What do we do after the bath?" he asks.
Sam sighs with his mouth closed, the puppy limp and lightly asleep across his lap and in the crook of his arm. "Well…. We'll see how he feels. Might need a heat pad, might not. He hasn't had a massage in a while, so I think that would be good for him. Then, we just keep him comfortable. He should move around every few hours if he can but otherwise, we'll keep him off his feet."
Castiel nods. He's not unfamiliar with taking care of Dean. Eventually, Dean and Sam let on to him that Dean's back was a real problem, and they gradually invited Castiel to help Sam look after Dean. Castiel just doesn't feel confident in his ability to take care of humans, afraid he'll make a mistake with terrible consequences because he has to rely on human methods of caretaking instead of his angel juice.
Sam goes to knock on the bathroom door and check on his brother. "You almost done?"
"Yeah. I'm getting out now," Dean says from inside.
"You need help?"
A pause. The rustling of water. "I think I'm good."
Sam waits, leaning his shoulder into the wall by the door, until Dean opens up.
Dean spends the next few hours on the living room couch with Castiel, watching TV. They lie on their sides, Cas behind Dean with his back against the couch and his arm around Dean's waist. They're covered in another blanket, this one Sherpa-lined on one side and cranberry red plush on the other. Dean is most comfortable on his side with a pillow or a person against his back for support. It's the reason why he's so frequently on the inside when he cuddles with Sam or Cas. Sometimes, Dean and Cas are actually watching the TV, other times Castiel ducks his head behind Dean's on the pillow they share and shuts his eyes to rest, sometimes Dean closes his eyes too.
Sam spends about an hour and a half sitting in the recliner next to the couch with his feet up on the coffee table, switching back and forth between a magazine and the television. Shooter lies on his belly between the recliner and the couch. Sam hopes it doesn't snow again later. There's already about four inches on the ground. He doesn't plan on leaving home until Monday morning, but the more snow there is, the more likely there will be shoveling and sand dumping for him to do before then.
"You think Leah's heard about the fight?" Dean says.
"I don't know who she'd hear it from at this point," says Sam. Leah's not friends with anyone who would've been at the saloon last night, and with this weather, she probably hasn't left home today to see anyone. "Reckon she will eventually."
"You gonna tell her yourself?"
"Maybe. If I hear from her before the weekend's over."
"Still no word on the strangers."
Sam eyes his cell phone on the coffee table. "Nope. You going to tell Kendall about what happened?"
"Probably. Just to impress her."
Sam snorts. "Right."
Dean suddenly closes his eyes and purrs. Sam looks over at him. Castiel has started to rub his belly. Slow, steady circles. Sam smiles.
"Is this all right?" Castiel says to Dean.
"You know it is, you sly devil," says Dean.
Belly rubs are a thing with Dean. One of those discoveries Sam made about his brother when they became more physical with each other.
Sam gets up from the recliner and goes into the kitchen. The puppy follows him. "I'm making tea, everybody want some?"
"Chamomile, please," says Dean. "With honey."
"Rose for me," Castiel says.
Shooter sits in the kitchen, watching Sam as he fills the electric kettle and stands there waiting for the water to boil. Sam picks the puppy up and holds him until the water's ready. The dog is amazingly soft and warm and still smells good from a recent bath. Sam will have to buy him a name tag for his collar next week. "Maybe we can take you hunting in the spring," he murmurs to the dog. "Beagles are hunting dogs, right?"
Sam looks over at Dean and Cas in the sitting room as the kettle clicks off. Castiel's face is hidden behind Dean's head, and he's more petting Dean's belly than rubbing it now. Dean's eyes are closed, face completely relaxed and lips parted slightly.
"You're gonna put him to sleep, Cas," Sam says.
No reply. Sam puts the dog down and pours three big cups of tea.
By now, Sam's sure that no one alive knows Dean's body better than he does. No one knows Sam's body better than Dean. Women like Leah and Kendall may knows the Winchesters' bodies sexually, which includes certain details that the brothers don't know about each other, but Sam and Dean have been taking care of each other physically and watching each other take care of himself as long as they've been alive. They know each other's pain thresholds, each other's history of wounds and broken bones and sprains and concussions and illness. They know the patterns of a common cold or the flu in each other. Each man knows the signs when his brother's hurt and trying to hide it. They know what to do to soothe each other through pain and sickness. They've learned and relearned each other's body through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood as if each brother is the other's mother and doctor rolled into one.
Sam's a little remorseful, looking back on their past, that he and Dean have both bruised each other up on more than one occasion. But they're brothers, after all. Punching each other in the face can't be that uncommon among brothers. At least their ugly brawls all happened under the influence of supernatural forces, but it still took Sam some time to stop feeling guilty about them. If he thinks about those fights now, he feels a twinge of guilt. He's so used to treating his brother's body with love, nurturing it now, that he can't really imagine hitting him again. For anything. He can't stand the idea of anyone else harming Dean's body, let alone himself doing the harm.
It's been interesting for Sam, the increase in touch between him and Dean. He has become aware of the physical connection between them, the fact that this other person comes from the same place he does down to their cells and blood, that there is something of Sam in Dean's flesh and something of Dean in his. Sam doesn't have children and probably never will, but he thinks he catches a glimpse of how it feels to be a parent, through his closeness to Dean—the intimacy of two bodies sharing origin, the primal sense of bonding that has no intellectual basis. It's all become more pronounced, now that Sam and Dean are each other's last living blood relation. They are two separate people, yet they are a part of each other, body and soul. Sam remembers that most acutely when he's touching Dean or when Dean is touching him. When he's holding Dean against him, when they're so close together that Sam can smell Dean's skin and feel him breathing and hear his heartbeat and feel the warmth of him, Sam grows quiet and somber with understanding. He was given this man for a brother, and he was given to his brother forever. This is holy. This is profound beyond their knowing.
Dean lies down in the middle of his bed without a shirt on, pillow under his hips and another one under his head. Sam climbs on top of him, knees on either side of Dean, and sits lightly on Dean's legs. He pours a quarter-sized amount of lavender massage oil into his palm, gets it on both his hands, and starts to cover Dean's back in it. Sam spreads the oil pretty evenly from Dean's shoulders down to his waist, then starts to massage Dean's lower back. Dean moans, his eyes already closed.
"You okay?" Sam murmurs.
"Yeah. Fuck," says Dean, low in his throat.
"Tell me if the pain's too intense."
"I know."
Castiel's sitting in Dean's big easy chair in the corner, watching the brothers. He asked earlier if Sam wanted him to go next door to his own place and give the brothers privacy, but Sam told him it's better for Dean to have both of them present.
Sam uses the heels of his palms and his thumbs to start loosening the muscles in Dean's lower back. He works the whole area from one side to the other. When he digs in and around Dean's spine and tail bone, his brother groans again and clutches at the pillow under his head. The pillow below his hips serves the purpose of helping the lower back to open. Sam moves away from the spine after a few minutes and returns to the surface muscles around it. When he starts using his elbows, Dean's whole body tenses. Sam finds a bad knot, sets his elbow directly into it, and just presses.
"Oh, God," Dean says.
Sam learned from a masseuse specializing in pain treatment how to reach the deeper muscles in a way many recreational massages don't. Her techniques are a tremendous help for people with chronic pain, but working that deep into the muscles often hurts a lot before they loosen. Sam brought Dean to tears on many occasions when he used massage on his brother during the first two years they lived here.
"Sam, maybe you should stop," Castiel says, blue eyes intent on the brothers.
"Dean," Sam says.
"I can handle it," Dean grits out. "It just burns."
Sam uses his elbow on two more points in Dean's lower back. He reminds Dean to breathe as he does. He massages the area again after relieving the three points of tightness, then moves up Dean's shoulders and neck. All his life, Dean's carried stress in his shoulders and upper back. Sam finds them tight every time he gives his brother a massage, though it's definitely improved over the last four years. He uses the whole of each hand to knead and grab the muscles across Dean's shoulders, eventually moving down to the middle of Dean's back and working in a motion and rhythm that travels up and down from shoulders to mid-spine. He pours more oil, Dean's skin shiny with it and the smell of lavender filling the room. Sam can feel his brother relaxing more and more as the massage continues. Dean's muscles loosen, open, stretch, lengthen. Sam's learned how to recognize the sensations under his touch.
Sam runs his hands down the length of Dean's sides and glides them down Dean's spine, spreads his thumbs out from each vertebrae, pushes into the muscles around his shoulder blades with fingertips and palms. He returns to the lower back, where millions of miles will forever remain. He wonders if their Dad suffered this pain, amazed he and Dean never thought of it when John was still alive. For Sam, there is some redemption in nursing Dean's body. If they neglected their father's health and comfort, Sam can do this for him now: take care of Dean.
Dean's skin is soft, pliant, and smooth with the drying oil. Sam closes his eyes for a minute as he touches it, silently blessing his brother and asking for love and healing to come through his hands. Dean would mock him if he knew Sam did this, if he knew Sam still prayed—even though Dean has prayed before, mostly to Castiel. But Sam isn't going to quit. As long as there's a God or some other supernatural force of good in the universe, Sam will speak to him about his brother.
He can feel Castiel watching him as he opens his eyes. He's still not sure if the angel can overhear Sam's prayers to others. "Dean," Sam says softly. "You awake?"
"Mmm," says Dean.
"I'm done. I'm gonna get you some water and more ibuprofen, if you want it."
"No pills. Just get down here."
Sam looks over his shoulder at Cas and tilts his head toward the door. Castiel gets up and leaves to fetch the water. Sam takes the extra blanket folded over the footboard of the bed and spreads it over Dean and himself as he lies down next to his brother. Dean's smack in the middle of the bed, so Sam doesn't have much room where he is. He lies on his right side, facing Dean, and cups his brother's neck and the base of his skull with his hand. Their father used to do that; Sam's pretty sure it's the reason the gesture calms Dean down. His back rises and falls with his breath, under Sam's arm.
Castiel comes back into the room quietly and stands on the opposite side of the bed with the glass of water. Dean lies motionless for a few moments, before slowly pushing himself up on one elbow to drink. He empties the glass and lies down again, this time on his side.
"Cas," he says, voice deep and a little raspy.
Castiel gets under the blanket, facing Dean. The bed is barely big enough for the three men, but they fit when Sam pulls Dean snug against him and Castiel pushes himself close to Dean, bodies fitting into each other and overlapping. Sam's arm around Dean and Dean's arm around Cas, Castiel's hand over Dean's jaw and cheek and neck, the tip of Sam's nose against the base of Dean's neck and his beard tickling Dean's bare skin. Castiel tilts his forehead forward to touch Dean's. Dean has his hand over the angel's shoulder blade, arm along Castiel's side. Sam's chest and Dean's back are pressed together, skin against soft cotton t-shirt, Sam's big hand over Dean's heart. A heart that has stopped and started again, all for him, more than once.
Sam thinks he can hear someone speaking to him sometimes, a voice so quiet in his head that he must choose to listen in order to hear it: this heart in your brother was formed to love you. It's running on the blood you share. Cherish it. Protect it. Heal it with everything good in you.
So Sam does. He surrenders to the one truth that hasn't changed since he came into this world: his brother's love for him, so powerful that Sam can't do anything except reflect it.
No one understands family better than the Winchesters—though Sam and Dean took different routes to that understanding. For years, it was always Dean who spoke of it, even more than their father. Family was everything. Nothing came before family. Family was what you lived and died and fought for. Family was worth any sacrifice and every sacrifice. Family was the only locus of safety, the only stability, the point of life itself. Family was the only place where you could be honest, where you could be real. Family was the reason the Winchesters lived the way they did: a monster—a demon—had destroyed it, left it broken and mangled with a giant wound where Mary had been, and the only right thing for the men to do was dedicate themselves to vengeance. Family demanded eternal and unconditional loyalty. If you had to give up some part of yourself to preserve the family, you did it without complaining.
There was a time, in his youth, where Sam thought that Dean and their father had it all wrong. Normal people didn't need their family the way the Winchesters needed each other. Normal people weren't so single-minded about family. Normal people had families that were constantly lukewarm—even cold, that were scattered or estranged or involved only out of annoying obligation, families that were more like a net of loosely connected knots spread wide than a singular body equally dependent on all major organs for survival. Normal people walked out on their blood families all the time. Never looked back. Sons hated their fathers or barely knew them, and brothers grew up into strangers or men so wrapped up in competition and jealousy, that annual holiday get-togethers were all they could handle of each other. Sam at eighteen thought he needed to get away from his family because that's just the way things were done. When he was older, for a while, he thought that it was all right to put all that distance—physical and emotional—between himself and his father and brother. He would just fill it with a woman and children instead, like everybody else.
His life hasn't turned out the way he dreamed it would when he was a college kid. He tried joining the normal crowd. Heaven, Hell, and Earth prevented him. Maybe some part of him still mourns the opportunity he never really had, but now that he's in his forties and retired from hunting, Sam also finds himself feeling grateful for the life he was given. Not for the unspeakable volumes of pain, suffering, and loss but for the love he knew in his father and the love he still knows with his brother. All the more grateful now for this family he has in the Wyoming wilderness: Dean, Cas, and himself—the three of them more deeply loving and caring toward each other than just about any group of people Sam's seen in the continental United States.
Normal people don't love their brothers the way Sam and Dean love each other. Then again, plenty of normal people don't know love so colossal with anybody, not even their lovers and spouses. Sam's got a feeling that he couldn't have had both: this love and bond with Dean, and the normal life.
If he'd been given a choice, he would've chosen Dean. Even with full knowledge of everything they would go through for the sake of such an intense love.
Normal people can keep their lukewarm families.
"Dean."
No answer.
Sam moves his hand from Dean's heart to Dean's belly. Warm flesh, abdominal muscles softer than they were fifteen years ago. Sam strokes his thumb over a tiny spot. "Dean, I'm getting hungry and I bet Cas is too. And you should eat something if you can. I'm going to make lunch."
"Cas can do it," Dean says with a dreamy voice. "Stay a little longer."
Castiel lifts his head up to look over at Sam, hand still covering Dean's jaw and thumb on his cheek. He has that softened glow in his blue eyes that usually appears after a long bout of touching or cuddling with Dean. Sam looks up at him. Castiel nods. "You stay with him, Sam. I can make us something to eat." The angel leans down and kisses Dean's hairline. "Are you feeling better?" he says, thumb moving back and forth over Dean's jaw.
"Right now, I feel awesome," says Dean, hand on Castiel's waist.
Castiel smiles and gets out of bed. The puppy, who was sleeping on the rug at the foot of the bed, follows him out of the room.
One of the best feelings that Sam has discovered since settling down with Dean is that there are still dreams to dream for the future. At first, he thought maybe he'd run out because retirement was realized and the wife and kids scenario no longer felt compelling. But four years in to the civilian life, Sam knows better. He's only forty. He could live another four or five decades, if he is so blessed. Life could take him and Dean and Castiel anywhere. Sometimes, Sam imagines a different house in a different state—Texas or the Deep South—and sometimes, it's Dean's crazy ranch or a farm in the Midwest. Sometimes, he daydreams about things that would feel ridiculous to say out loud: opening up their own roadhouse for hunters, becoming a college professor who teaches folklore or the supernatural in literature, Dean with his own mechanic's garage that specializes in classic cars, lots of animals, a cabin in Alaska, a giant house where he and Dean and Castiel live together with a woman for Sam and one for Dean and no less intimacy between the men, the men raising wayward children without any women in the picture.
They have so much time and so much good could happen, good things they've never experienced before. It fills Sam with a feeling he never quite felt before: a cross between hope and excitement. The second half of his life is going to be a thousand times happier than the first. The same goes for Dean. The thought alone makes Sam smile.
He may not know where he, Dean, and Cas are headed or what they're going to do when they get there, but he knows they're going as a family. What he's had with them in Wyoming is too good to give up.
"I hope Heaven's different when we go back there," Dean says, lying on his back now on the left side of the bed.
Sam's on his stomach with a pillow under his head and in the hook of his arm, other hand resting on Dean's belly. "Different how?"
"I hope it's kinda like a second life. Instead of reliving your best memories, you get a second shot with everybody else who's up there."
Sam quirks his mouth into a knowing half-smile. A chance to know Mom. A chance just to hang out with Dad, the man he was before he became a hunter. A chance to see Bobby and Ellen and Jo and Ash again. A second chance with Jessica. Yeah—that sounds better than déjà vu. "We can hope," Sam says.
Dean closes his eyes, grins, and hums.
"What?"
"Nothing," Dean says. "Just, I get to spend eternity with your dumb ass in the car next to me. Literally, forever."
Sam huffs, moving his fingers and thumb against Dean's belly. "Yeah, I know, I'm really looking forward to more of the same five cassette tapes and your extra onions."
"Bitch."
"Jerk."
Dean turns his head toward Sam and looks at him. Sam's eyes meet his brothers. They gaze without smiling, Sam's hand a warm weight on Dean's belly. Dean lays his own hand over it.
After the family eats, Castiel goes outside to sit in one of the rocking chairs on Sam and Dean's porch, wearing a jacket and wrapped in a thick blanket. He has a mug of coffee in his hand. Sam comes out to join him after a few minutes but doesn't sit down. He stands in front of the door with his own cup of coffee, and together they look out at the land and the long driveway and the road and trees covered in snow. Some of the clouds have cleared and it's brighter than it was in the morning. The snow is beautiful and clean.
"Cas, what are you doing out here?" Sam says after a few moments. "It's cold."
"Fresh air," says Cas, sipping his coffee. "The cold feels good after all the warmth inside."
"Yeah, I guess it does."
"Is Dean walking his laps?"
"Yup."
Dean walks back and forth about a dozen times from the front door to the back of the house, whenever his back pain kicks in. Some movement is good, if he can manage it.
"Sam," says Castiel. "What are you going to do about the strangers?"
Sam doesn't look at him. He's quiet for a beat. "Besides making sure they get out of town at their earliest convenience? Nothing, I guess."
Castiel doesn't respond. He and Sam linger on the porch together, eyes narrowed on the white landscape, until Sam's coffee mug is nearly empty.
"Hey, Cas," Sam says.
"Yes."
Sam looks over at the angel. "Thank you…. for helping me look after Dean. It means a lot to him when you do."
Cas smiles gently.
They spend the rest of the afternoon separate: Castiel knitting and watching television in the sitting room, Sam reading and internet surfing in the living room before the fire, and Dean resting in his room with his records playing on the record player he bought from an old man in town their first spring in Wyoming. Sam hears a lot of soft country. He's not entirely sure what Dean does when he listens to music in his room, but he suspects it's some combination of daydreaming, remembering, journaling, and occasionally taking out that box he keeps under the bed, the one filled with every photograph they have of their family that they didn't frame. Once, Sam walked in on Dean cleaning his handguns, sitting Indian-style on the bed with all the metal parts surrounding him, even though they don't use the guns anymore except to shoot for fun.
When Sam does go in to check on Dean, he finds his brother lying on his back with the dog draped over his belly. Dean pets Shooter's head lazily and talks out loud but Sam can't hear him clearly over the music. Dean only looks up and over when Sam lifts the needle off the record.
"You entertained enough in here?" Sam says.
"Yeah. 'm fine. What time is it?"
"Bout five. It'll be dark soon."
"You gonna go out to the barn?" Dean asks. They exercise in there every Saturday and Sunday.
Sam shakes his head. "It's cold and the snow and you. I'll pass today." He sits at the end of the bed and twists around to look at Dean. "Who were you talking to?"
"The dog. Just telling him what he's missed so far."
"That might take a while."
"Well, he'll be around a long time…. Won't you?" Dean says, looking down his chest at the puppy.
"So does that mean you're glad we took him after all?" Sam asks, with a triumphant smirk.
"Hmph. Don't rub it in." Dean sits up and moves the dog off of him. He folds his legs and pats the empty space in front of him on the bed. "Sit," he says to Sam.
Sam obeys, mirroring Dean's pose.
Dean takes his brother's hands in his and looks at them. Sam's hands are bigger—Dean still teases him about having huge bear paws. Sam's hands are cleaner than Dean's; Dean's hands always have a stain to them from working on cars. Sam's nails are a little longer than Dean's but better kept. Dean runs his thumbs over Sam's fingers, looks at the knuckles raw with scrapes and cuts. Emotion surfaces on his face, a mixture that Sam can't identify. Dean lifts his brother's hands to his lips and kisses the scraped up knuckles, slowly and tenderly, one on each hand. He looks up at Sam with shining eyes and says, "Thank you for taking care of me, Sammy."
Sam swallows with a tight throat, his own eyes glassy. "You've been taking care of me since I was born. It's only right I do the same when you need it."
"I just hope it's not something you gotta do the rest of our lives."
"I hope it is," Sam says.
And he means it.