A/N: This is a late post to but it's been on LJ for a while. This is my Supernatural Valentine's Day fic, part of The Soul Mate Series.

Gen. Established platonic relationship. Pointless schmoop.

Set some time in the future, perhaps S7 AU. Mention of het sex.

Lady in Red

The Impala is filled with rose petals. Brilliant red, big and velvety, plucked in their prime. They cover the inside of the car: the backseat, the front seat, the car floor, the dash, the nook of the back window. They lie so thick that pushing them aside would do little more than reveal a tiny spot of the black upholstery beneath. There are rose petals covering the car too, on the hood and the trunk and the roof, a few of them on the ground around her tires, blown faintly off her body. The car is the brightest thing in sight, clean black sides reflective in the sunshine and deep, vibrant red.

Sam is standing in the parking lot, hands in his pockets, laughing. Dean's cursing him out, trying to sound more pissed off than he is; what he is, is annoyed and embarrassed. It's a mild day, the sun shining not too bright but still warm now that Sam's been standing here for a few minutes. The air, dry and cool, also smells vaguely fragrant.

Dean's calling Sam a fag and an asshole and a douche bag and a smug sonuvabitch and his cheeks are rosy as he paces between the car and his brother.

"Happy Valentine's Day," Sam says, barely getting the words out before he laughs harder than he has in a week.

Dean shuts up, his face pursed, and opens the driver's door to push all the petals off of his side of the bench seat over to Sam's. Some of them fall onto the floor of his side. Clumps of them fall down on Sam's, and Sam opens his door, still laughing, and starts to dump handfuls of petals into the backseat. He scoops them up off the floor too. He may not want to sit on them or step on them, but there's no way he's letting Dean get out of spending the whole day with the petals in the car.

Dean opens the trunk to stow their duffels and grumbles when some of the petals fall in over their arsenal. He doesn't even bother swiping them all off the outside of the car. He just gets behind the wheel, with Sam already situated in his seat (chuckling), and peels out of the motel parking lot. The petals whip and whirl off the Impala, fluttering in a cloud for a few moments as the boys disappear down the road.

They drive a few hours into east Texas and stop, whiling away the day. Everywhere they look, there's pink and red and white, hearts and flowers and plush teddy bears and puppies and cats. Dean usually makes fun of Valentine's Day, while Sam usually ignores it. This time, Sam walks around with a smile on his face, and Dean's not smiling, ducking a little as if he doesn't want anyone to recognize him. He hopes to God no one looks into the Impala where it's parked and sees all those damn petals in the backseat.

Sam and Dean hold hands on occasion, and Sam would do it today just to tease. But one look at Dean tells him his brother won't have any of it. Dean stays sour all day, and Sam thinks he's being ridiculous. But no matter how pissy Dean is, Sam's glee remains intact. He can't believe it took him all these years to think of the rose petal idea. Priceless. He'll never forget the way the Impala looked this morning.

At some point, Dean decides he wants to go for a walk alone-and Sam thinks that sounds like a good idea. He goes for his own walk, in the late afternoon, hands in his jacket pockets. He feels like he hasn't taken a walk just for the sake of it in a long time. He thinks more clearly and deliberately when he's alone than when he's with Dean, without even knowing why. It's almost as if some part of Sam is afraid his brother will know what he's thinking, even though he knows that's impossible.

Valentine's Day. He mostly doesn't care. Never did, except for when he was with Jess. He always made sure to give her a great day: dinner and gifts and romantic words and good sex. He smiles to himself, wistfully, remembering her. Those are pleasant memories, and he can understand why most couples celebrate the holiday, even if it totally is another ploy of capitalistic America.

But he doesn't feel sorry for himself, not having a girlfriend or a wife or a lover to share the day with. He isn't alone, and he certainly isn't unloved. Dean may be in a crappy mood right now, but he is no less Sam's soul mate. And sure, none of this flowers-candy-diamonds stuff applies to them, they're not having a candle lit dinner or whatever. But the way Sam sees it, what they have is far deeper than all that anyway. He can't even begin to find words for how he feels about his brother and what their relationship means to him. And he knows Dean feels the same way. Sam wouldn't trade what they have for the best girlfriend or wife in the universe.

Dean relaxes once he's alone, breathes easy and lets the muscles in his face loosen out of the perpetual frown he's been wearing ever since finding the Impala all American-Beauty'd this morning. He doesn't know why he's making such a big deal out of it. Sure, it's annoying and looks incredibly gay, but even he has to admit that it isn't a bad prank. It's actually a little bit... sweet.

Dean almost wants to walk in front of traffic for thinking that.

Nobody's ever done something like that for him, in seriousness. Not that he's been wishing for melodramatic girly bullshit. He and Lisa had done some romantic stuff together when he lived with her. If he squints and thinks about it long enough, he can probably remember at least once when Cassie bought him a little gift for no reason. Otherwise, Dean hasn't had any romance in his life, despite the vast amounts of sex. Definitely never something like a thousand rose petals decorating his car.

And yeah, maybe it's weird coming from his brother, even if it was (mostly?) a joke. But part of Dean sort of enjoyed it. (Sam will never know.)

Stupid Valentine's Day.

It isn't until the night's winding down and they've eaten dinner and had a few drinks at their kind of gritty bar, where couples are nowhere to be found, that Sam and Dean remember Dean's golden rule about Valentine's Day: it is, by far, the best day of the year to pick up lonely single women. Sure enough, when he combs over the pickings, Dean finds a suitable gal sitting alone at a table for two against the wall. His mood tremendously lifted, he gives Sam a nod and a naughty grin as he gets up and moves toward the woman. Sam watches him go and shakes his head. Then, he looks around. A pretty brunette appears out of the bathroom corridor, looking as if she's about to leave, and he smiles at her.

Sam and Dean leave separately, neither one of them planning to wait up for the other.

That night, Sam dreams that he's asleep in a sea of innumerable red rose petals. Each one is a piece of Dean.

In the morning, not too early because he knows his brother likes to sleep in, Sam comes back to their motel room. The woman's gone and all traces of her. Dean's bed is still unmade (they had booked a two-bed room because Dean was pissed off at Sam), but Sam's is totally unchanged. Dean's already dressed and washed up, with that lightness to his step and his expression. Sam feels better too; before last night, he hadn't had sex in a while, still not able to let go completely of the way he was such a whore without a soul.

"Dude," says Dean. "She loved the flowers."

Sam blinks.

"What?"

"The flowers! Your stupid ass prank. She saw them in the backseat when I parked the car and she flipped out. She thought I was the world's most romantic, lonely bachelor. We did it like three or four times last night. Including in the backseat."

Sam makes his scrunchy bitch face, swats the air in Dean's direction as he moves to sit on the end of his bed, and Dean grins from ear to ear.

"I hope you cleaned out the car," Sam warns. "Because I am not touching that mess if you didn't."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll take care of it in a minute, princess. Consider yourself forgiven."

Sam snorts.

"Thanks but I don't need to be forgiven. That was the funniest thing I've come up with in a long time, and it was worth it just for your face."

Dean flips him off.

"Where to?" Sam says.

"Right now? I was thinking breakfast. There's an IHOP down the street."

Sam watches his brother shrug into his jacket and makes another bitch face.

"IHOP? Really?"

"IHOP is not that bad, Sam. Just gimme ten minutes to clean out the car."

Dean opens the door, lets in the sunlight, and before he disappears outside, he glances back over his shoulder and says,

"Oh, yeah, and you left something in the bathroom."

Sam gets up and goes to check. Next to the bathroom sink, he finds one of those big heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. It's dark pink and purple and red, with "BE MINE" in fat letters on the front. Sam grins, the kind of private grin he only lets himself show when he's alone. He picks up the box and opens it...

Lettuce? A heart shaped box full of... wilted lettuce?

He's almost doubled over with laughter as he moves from the bathroom to the motel room door, opens it up and chucks the box into the parking lot, in Dean's general direction. The top and bottom come apart in mid-air, lettuce falling everywhere, and Sam's leaning in the doorway, laughing with tears in his eyes. He can't even manage to get out a "Fuck you."

Dean stands next to the Impala, watching him and smiling, the soft morning sunshine giving him a glow.