Fourth in series. Chronologically follows Last Time was Just a Warm Up, We Have Only Begun to Love, and We Don't Have to Talk About Love.

gen (with strong romantic/sensual/nonsexual overtones). soulmate!fic. cuddle!fic. future!fic. AU!fic.

Spoilers through Season 6.

Warning: this fic features what I call "soulporn." Out-of-body soul-to-soul contact. Erotic overtones, but I still consider this story gen because it does not include sexual desire, attraction, or activity.

The Only Cure is Nirvana

by MSC

The physical touching helps. It helps a lot.

But months go by and Sam still isn't done suffering. Dean has to pay closer attention to recognize the presence of his brother's pain, especially since it is mostly psychic now, and although Sam functions normally and seems to even out more and more, there's still that twinge in his body, that expression of weariness when he thinks Dean isn't looking or when he forgets for a second to hide it. They don't talk about it-hell, they may even talk less about their feelings now than they did before-but they've learned how to use the touching as a substitute.

They even begin to expand: finding something or someone to punch when they're angry or tense, shooting cans and empty glass jars off dirt roads or in fields or in back lots, getting more brutal when they kill something on a hunt. Rage, frustration, discouragement: Sam and Dean find ways to use their bodies for violent release. In sadness or loneliness or fear, they turn to each other, touching without asking permission or even bringing up the subject at hand. It's easier to resolve their feelings of the moment in silent touch.

Yet as Dean watches his brother and grows more attuned to Sam's physical expressions of emotion, he starts feeling the need to ask. To have a conversation about what Sam's going through. Dean may be able to relieve his brother, but it's obvious that relief is temporary. The pain continues to return. Sam doesn't mention it, and Dean decides not to ask. But he worries the question in his mind: what is it? What hurts? Where? Why? How? What are you thinking?

Most importantly: what more can I do?

Dean's still not sure if he's forgiven God for being (in his opinion) an uninvolved dick bag. But one night, while Sam's out buying alcohol from a local gas station, Dean sits on their bed in the motel room, elbows on his knees. He shuts his eyes and says out loud,

"Look, I don't know if you're listening. I know you and I don't have the greatest of relationships but-I need your help again. With Sam. He's hurting-and I've done all I know how to do but it isn't enough."

His voice breaks just a little when he says it out loud, his feelings of powerlessness too raw. He knows it isn't his fault, what happened to Sam and what's still happening to Sam. But Dean doesn't care. He feels like he should at least be able to fix it.

He hears the flutter of wings and opens his eyes to Castiel, who stands in front of him with his arms at his side. They make eye contact, the angel's gaze as intense as usual, and Dean almost scoffs.

"I talk to God and you're the one who shows up," he says.

"If you do not wish to see me, I can leave. I do have a war to handle."

Dean raises his hand toward the angel, in front of his own chest.

"It's fine. I wouldn't actually expect God to answer me anyway."

"Your concern for Sam-it is understandable, but I don't know if you can do anything more than what you've already done. He spent a year in a half with Michael and Lucifer; it's amazing he's as functional as he is."

Dean sighs and puts his head in his hands. Castiel watches him, recognizing his emotions in Dean's body language, the frustration and discouragement in the plane of his shoulders.

"Cas. I can't just leave him like this." He folds his hands in a prayer gesture and holds them in front of his face. "He's still drinking too much and... I can feel it when he's screwed up now. I don't know how to explain it, it sounds kinda weird, but ever since we started..."

He glances at Castiel with slight embarrassment, blushing a little, but Castiel remains expressionless. Dean opens his mouth again to speak, then closes it.

"Increasing your physical contact?" the angel says.

"Yeah. That. Ever since we started doing that, it's like I can... feel it in his body." His blush darkens. "All the crap he carries around."

"Well, considering the degree of your intimacy on multiple levels, it is logical that you would be able to discern a great deal of Sam's interior experience. And vice versa. I do not doubt that Sam is still in psychological and perhaps emotional pain; I would be surprised if he wasn't. Didn't you say yourself that his healing would take time?"

Dean wonders just how often he and Sam are on Castiel's freaky angel radar. Doesn't Cas have anything better to do than eavesdrop on them?

"I know what I said. But it's been months. He should be past the worst of it by now. Right? He should be, I dunno, back to the normal Sam levels of emo. Not drinking more than I do."

"What do you propose I do, Dean?"

"Fix him! Do something. I don't care, as long as he's better than he is now."

Castiel looks truly sad in response, his blue eyes down to the floor. He looks back at Dean, and Dean can already hear it coming before Cas opens his mouth.

"I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do for him. I couldn't even prevent this kind of suffering in you. As much as I would've liked to. It is not within my power to erase all of the effects of Hell."

"There's gotta be something. I'll take any amount of help."

"Maybe Sam would benefit from a professional therapist."

Dean snorts and gets up, moving around the bed and standing with his back to the angel. He can hear the rain coming down outside. Sam should be back soon.

"Please tell me you know us better than that by now," he says softly.

Castiel says nothing, his sadness amplified by Dean's obvious disappointment in him. He does want to help the Winchesters; he always has. But there is truly nothing he can personally do to relieve Sam's post-Hell suffering.

A few minutes pass in silence, before an idea strikes him.

"Dean."

Dean turns toward him.

"There may be something. But my involvement would be minimal. I would only facilitate between you and Sam. You will have to do most of the work."

"What are you talking about?"

Castiel explains.

Sam comes back with a bottle of rum and a 2 liter of Diet Coke. He drinks more than Dean without paying attention; Dean allows him to get a little drunk but not much. Once Sam is sprawled out on the bed, most of the rum gone and his breath slow, Dean takes off his shoes and lies down carefully next to him. He positions himself on his side, pressing himself against Sam's side and circling his arm around Sam's torso. Sam makes a sleepy noise of acknowledgment as he feels Dean's head rest on his shoulder and the warmth of Dean's body relaxing him further.

Dean thinks, Okay, Cas, it's show time. The angel reappears.

Sam's asleep by now, which was what Dean was hoping for; he's not sure his brother would've agreed to Castiel's plan. It took Dean some convincing too (not much).

Castiel stands by the bed, hovering over Dean and looking down at him. Dean sees him in his peripheral vision but doesn't make eye contact.

"Are you ready?" Cas says.

"Let's just get it over with."

"The sensations you feel may be very intense. There is no need to panic. You and your brother should be able to come out of it on your own, when you have accomplished the desired effect."

Dean says nothing, takes a breath and smells Sam (rum and dried sweat and soft cotton), and Castiel leans over him, reaches out with his forefinger and middle finger pointed together, and zaps Dean into oblivion.

When Dean regains some semblance of awareness, he realizes he's not awake or in his body. He sees only darkness and starts feeling around for Sam. Cas told him that neither brother would appear as they do physically, that on this most basic of soul planes, one could only feel for things. Dean didn't know what the hell that meant, but now that he's here, he thinks he can understand. He couldn't explain it to someone else but he knows somehow what he has to do.

As he begins to move, it feels like he's in water, a black water. Not too hot or too cold. Temperature-less. He asks for Sam, sending out his request like ripples all around him. He doesn't have to wait long... He recognizes Sam the moment his brother's soul appears in the distance, like a glowing coal. Dean is not impatient. He just continues to move forward until Sam is within his reach.

He reaches out for his brother with both hands (he can't see them but he feels like he has them) and takes Sam in a gentle grip. He feels Sam's recognition of him, relief instantly sweeping through his brother.

Dean.

Sam.

Dean is immediately surprised at how good it feels, this simple soul-to-soul connection. He isn't doing anything more than the physical equivalent of standing before his brother with his hands on Sam's shoulders, but already, pleasure begins to spread through each of them.

Neither one of them could ever put it to words, would never admit it even if they could put it to words, but this hunger they've both always had for each other-for more, for a closeness always at their fingertips but never in their reach-now begins to taste satisfaction. It's a greediness, a neediness, a longing for union with one another that in their bodies would not be possible. They've felt it before when having sex with women, with Jess and Lisa too, a desire they could never identify, for more. More what? They couldn't have told you. But sex only ever left that desire frustrated, irritated, their bodies satiated but still, the question of more, what the fuck was it?

And now they know. It's this soul to soul touch, the closing of their main circuit. It feels as if their energy finally has somewhere to go, strengthened and stimulated as it circulates through them, from one brother to the other. Guess they aren't just blood; they're soul too.

Dean wraps himself around Sam and Sam immediately responds in turn, pressing himself into Dean as his brother envelops him. They fit with perfection. It's Dean's arms strong around Sam's torso, Sam's arms tight around Dean's torso, Dean's hands flat and warm on Sam's back, Sam's hands curled into Dean's back, Dean's face down in the curve of Sam's neck turning into shoulder, Sam's face hidden in Dean's shoulder, so close, closer than they've ever been, as close as they can possibly be, indistinguishable from one another yet still two.

Fuck Heaven, Dean thinks. Just let him have this, and he'll be good.

Dean recognizes the myriad of open wounds blended throughout Sam's soul, inseparable from his brother like permanent stains in a fabric. They stand out, the blackest holes in Sam's white light, and Dean feels the most tender and sensitive aching rise up in himself. He couldn't have imagined it was this bad. He's afraid to go near these wounds, afraid he's going to do more harm than good.

But he remembers what Castiel told him: only you have the power to mend anything in Sam that he can't mend himself. You're his soulmate.

I'm his soulmate, Dean thinks.

He chooses one of the wounds and slowly reaches for it, lays his hand over it, so gentle, but Sam still jerks in Dean's grasp, pain blooming through him that Dean immediately feels. If they were embodied, the pain would come with a long moan, a tightening of muscle, sweat breaking out.

Sorry.

Dean doesn't know how he knows; he just stays very still with his palm over Sam's dark stain, right above where Sam's left hip would be. Dean focuses his energy, tries his best to tune out of Sam's pain and tune into his own love for Sam. Sam's pulsing heavy against his brother, feverish and tense.

Hurts. Hurts, Dean.

Dean feels a little bit of his love for Sam-he doesn't need all of it, and fuck, it feels like all his soul's made of is love for Sam-gather up in him like a flame. He waits until it burns steady and then brings it to that dark stain beneath his hand. Sam would groan in his body, the pain flaring up at first, sharper than he could physically handle, but soon it fades...

Dean holds his love there, patient, knowing what to wait for. He feels Sam's pain in that spot begin to subside just as his brother feels it. He pours love into that wound until he senses the pain reach a low plateau, the wound closing up and beginning to scar. Sam sends him ripples of gratitude.

It's an improvement. But Dean considers just how many of these dark spots fill his brother. There are so damn many. There must be a quicker way than tending to one at a time.

He begins to focus again. No, more than that. It's as if he begins to ignite every individual particle of his soul: every memory of Sam, each individual thing Dean loves about Sam, every time he felt loved by Sam from the moment his brother was born to the most recent one earlier in the day, every individual moment he felt pure love for Sam, and every single aspect that simply makes him Dean, even the parts that have nothing to do with his brother. He lights all of it up until he's a burning, blinding, divine mass of love-love so powerful and deep and pure, love Dean never knew he had in him-and he doesn't even have to direct it at Sam on purpose.

Sam's soul, already pressed against his, begins to tremble hard. First there is unbelievable pain that Dean only peripherally recognizes. It feels as if Dean's pouring salt and alcohol in all of Sam's gaping wounds, and Sam would scream in his body, scream and beg for it to stop. But Dean won't stop. He loves and loves and loves and loves, until he loses touch with Sam for a moment, feeling nothing except himself, his own light. And eventually, Sam's pain begins to fade; his whole soul tingles, like coming back to life after having gone totally numb. Warmth comes. The pain disappears and he can feel his brother completely, where before he was only brushing the surface.

Dean.

It's love Sam has never imagined. For a while, he's dumbfounded, lost in indescribable sensations as Dean touches him everywhere, makes him whole again. An emptiness he didn't know he had is suddenly obliterated, awash with Dean's light. Sam just takes it in, more and more and more, and Dean's love seems to be infinite... It isn't some pathetic dependency; it's the most superhuman, mind-blowing love, feeling, light, whatever the fuck it is, that could ever be. It leaves Sam senseless, unsure what part of Dean is where against him and around him and in him and with him. Sam's reduced to an incoherent feeling thing, can't think or process or comprehend, only feel how incredibly, OhmyfuckingGod good it is to have his raw soul covered in Dean.

His brother is serene, as Sam takes his love. This is Dean in his element, the most satisfying thing he could imagine: this uninhibited loving of his brother. He has never felt more himself. He feels himself in complete alignment. He savors this unrestricted access to his brother, cool water slick down the sandy throat of a dead man, what he's been aching for all this time, especially during the last few years when he and Sam drifted apart. He becomes aware that with his love alone, he's cauterized every single wound in Sam's soul, turned them to scars; he did that. And he glows with pride.

Sam, at some point, regains enough orientation to realize he wants to reciprocate. It takes him longer than Dean to figure out how, to wade through all of Dean's love and find his own love for Dean. But Sam finds it, just like he did in that graveyard when Lucifer was riding his body. He finds it-everything he loves about Dean, every time he's felt loved by Dean, all the reasons and ways he loves Dean, their entire history of loving each other. Sam finds it in himself and it is all of himself, this loving Dean, this being loved by Dean, this being with Dean. Ramped up on Dean's light and power, Sam sets fire to himself and explodes at his brother.

Dean shrinks back and shudders in surprise, withdrawing from Sam a little. But Sam doesn't care. He floods himself all over Dean, lost in the pleasure of his own insurmountable love for his brother, and finds that all that time, it wasn't his desire to be loved by Dean but to give himself to his brother.

And he gives. He gives it all, all at once, so that Dean blacks out at first. And when he comes to, he feels Sam touch every inch of him, every needy place and every empty space and his own wounds and fears and bad memories and grief and loneliness. He feels Sam relentless in him, covering him, enshrouding him, leaving no corner neglected.

It's everything Dean's ever wanted. Love just as absolute as his own. Just as powerful and unconditional and eternal and unbreakable.

Sam. Sam. Oh, my God.

Dean.

Please. Too much.

Never too much. Never. I've got you.

They're all at once arching into each other, clutching each other close, motionless. It's pleasure and bliss and euphoria that make orgasms look like ice cream cones.

Jesus Christ. Fuck, thinks Dean.

Sam doesn't think anything at all. He just flows love, flows love, settles into the warm rhythm of his brother's love and accepts healing. He feels a lifetime of feeling for Dean roar out of him, like a river breaking through a dam, Dean could almost drown as he hears and breathes and tastes Sam's love:

There hasn't been a single moment of my entire life when I wasn't your brother There hasn't been a single moment where I quit loving you I don't know what it feels like not to love you like this Dean I couldn't live without you it hurt too much I'm sorry I hurt you I'm sorry for leaving you I tried so hard to get things right I was only ever trying to find you find this feel this love I love you Dean I need you please don't leave me I can't be without you I'm not Sam without you Dean you brought me back I came back I can feel you again couldn't feel you in Hell couldn't feel this love Dean yes God your love everywhere so deep I can't how do I love you right there Dean I always loved you always wanted to stay with you I can stay like this stay here right here with me I'll stay I'll love you forever I'll love you until there's nothing left of me I'm only me with you loving you I'm made of love for you Dean I love you Dean oh my God feels so good together I love you Dean I love you Dean I love you Dean Dean Dean Dean I love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you...

And Dean-the soul of Dean-the strongest, eternal, most powerful part of who he is almost short circuits into darkness because he's so overwhelmed with... Pain? Pleasure? Gratitude? Appreciation? Relief? Love? Healing? All of it? None of it? Something he can't name? Feeling. Intense, so intense, too much he thinks but he's still here and it goes on and he feels and feels and feels and

Sammy Sammy Sammy it's you this is you this is who I love this is why I am this is what I did it all for this is what I needed back this is what you were missing this is what they destroyed but I made it all better you're all better aren't you please I need you need you so much want you forever with me like this I can't be without you again please don't leave me again Sam you don't know I can't do it again I can't I can't I CAN'T you're my brother I'm your brother my soulmate your soulmate our souls like this always it hurts so much oh God hurts without you please stay here like this right now please I want I need I love you so much Sam love you I love you I don't know how to stop loving you always loved you can't remember not loving you can't remember not having you in me blood bones mind heart soul memory smell sight touch sound love love love love love love love love love love love love love love Sam you I us now here please God oh God oh God oh God oh God oh fuck oh Sam I love you Sam I love you Sam I love you love you love you love you love you love you love you

Yes Dean just like this it's true it's all true what I'm giving feeling believe me please I need you to feel me this is me my love for you is me and being loved by you is me it's me it's me it's me it's me I'm yours

Oh God yes please here here you're here you love me fuck so much just love me Sam I love you so much I need you so much I'm finally whole Sam

Dean

Sam

Dean

Sam

Dean

I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you love you love you love you love you love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love love

They wake up, gasping and breathing in, hearts beating fast, bodies hot against each other for a second before they rise up and pull apart, gulping for air, sitting on opposite sides of the bed with their feet on the ground. Castiel stands at the foot of the bed watching them with his blue eyes piercing, a hint of awe in them. Sam and Dean both have their hands on their own knees, and they're shaking. They can't seem to make themselves stop, as they catch their breath and calm down. They have their backs to each other, and they don't say a word or turn around.

Dean looks at Castiel first, as Sam puts his head in his hands, his broad shoulders still quivering and his hands too.

"Did it have the desired effect?" Castiel says.

Dean snorts a little, closes his eyes, tries to get a grip on himself.

"What was that?" Sam says, turning his head toward the angel, as if his brother isn't the room.

"Healing."

"If you make a Marvin Gaye joke, Sam, so help me God," says Dean.

Castiel cocks his head to one side a bit, and Sam doesn't respond, puts his head back in his hands because he feels dizzy and fuck, he's still drunk. Nobody speaks for a few minutes, while Castiel looks from one man to the other, and eventually, Sam lies down on his side, back still to his brother. Dean glances at the digital clock on the nightstand next to him, sees he and Sam were out for an hour. Just an hour? It felt like years wherever they went. Soul World.

"If you're no longer in need of my services, I'll be going now," Castiel says. "I have business."

Dean nods, looks at him again with grateful green eyes but can't bring himself to smile.

"Thanks, Cas. We'll see you soon."

The angel gives him a nod and disappears.

Dean sits still where he is for a long time, listening to Sam's sleepy breaths without looking at his brother. The memory and feeling of his soul meeting with Sam's remains bright within him, and he doesn't know what to make of it. It felt... incredible, unbelievable, orgasmic (he can't let that be awkward now), all of it's an understatement. He didn't know he could feel something that intense. It's what he always wanted without having had the language or thought vocabulary to know it was what he wanted. But now that he's back in his body, the idea of staying in that place exhausts him.

He finally twists around and looks at Sam, who seems to be asleep. Dean will worry if that healing really worked or not tomorrow, when Sam's sober and Dean doesn't feel the need to sleep for a hundred years.

For now, he switches off the lamp on his side of the bed and lies down, scoots his body next to Sam's and gently puts his arm around him. Sam shifts back against Dean, almost asleep but awake enough to respond. He only tolerates it for a moment, before he rolls over and pushes himself against Dean, arms around his brother, pulling him close. And Dean pulls Sam close too, mumbles something about Sam not puking on him in the middle of the night, and Sam doesn't care and doesn't answer. They tangle their legs together, and they're still in their jeans and shirts but fuck it.

Sam's head lies on Dean's chest and Dean's face rests in Sam's hair and they can smell each other.