Back to the (Plague-Ridden, Really Shitty,) Post-Apocalyptic Future
By Kaynara
Castiel was a dick about it at first. Well, not really. He was incredibly unhelpful without intending any ill will whatsoever. Still, Sam was persistent.
"Dean got to see what the future looks like." Or was it looked? Did one apply the past tense to a questionably alterable future? Leaning against the desk, Sam massaged his head, which was starting to throb from the intricacies of pre-apocalyptic grammar. Across the room, Cas looked confused and mildly offended, which was to say he looked like Cas.
"I should have the same chance," Sam said finally.
Cas frowned and sat down on the motel room bed, spine straight as a nine-iron. Sam figured it was a move intended, not to achieve comfort, so much as foster the illusion of being comfortable. On the whole, Sam found interacting with Cas sort of exhausting.
"I didn't do that," Cas said after a while. "That was Zachariah."
"You can do it, though," Sam pointed out.
Cas looked upset. Sort of. Or else he was wondering where Sam bought his jeans.
"Sam—"
"It's an angel thing, right? You can send me back. Forward, I mean. Just for a little while." He didn't know what he was going to do if Cas agreed, wasn't sure if he even could affect change in a time not his own. But he knew he had to see this future—the one his actions had made—for himself.
"I don't think that's a wise idea, Sam."
Sam caught Cas's gaze from across the room, and Cas stared back like Sam was a damn eclipse or something equally unfathomable. In the end, Sam blinked first. Sometimes being human really blew.
"Cas, when have I ever asked you for anything?" and it sounded a lot more like an outburst than Sam intended. "I get that you and I aren't meant to be pals, okay? But just this one time, maybe--maybe you could do me one on the house, man."
Sam wasn't the Winchester with the guardian angel on his shoulder. Not that having his own personal Heavenly helper had done Dean much good. Still, in his darker moments, Sam felt a bitterness deep in his bones at the way things had shaken out.
"Angels are watching over us," Dean had told Sam when they were kids. They were at one, two, ten motels with similarly misleading names—Happiness Hotel, Paradise Cabins. They didn't offer pleasure so much as roach infestations and free cable. (True story: when Sam was six, nothing made him pass out faster than the sweaty sounds of Showtime After Dark).
While child-Sam huddled under the covers, careful to keep all four limbs encased lest the roaches climb him like a ladder, Dean whispered about the angels Mary had promised once. In Dean's stories, the angels were all faceless mother figures with soft, welcoming arms. Later, when Dean was at the critical age of still believing in angels but beginning to notice the opposite sex, the angels developed red hair and big creamy breasts that popped over their toga tops.
None of them looked like Castiel, who was watching Sam with what might, on a human face, maybe have been pity. It wasn't that Sam envied his brother. That would be wrong, not to mention just plain dumb. But sometimes, in his darker moments, Sam thought it was really unfair that Dean ended up with angels while Sam got this.
Sam was ready to give up on the whole idea, head back to the bar where he had left Dean drinking whiskey and eye-banging the waitress, when Cas exhaled heavily, crossed the room in three strides.
"Don't … think too poorly of future-me," Cas said hastily.
And then he laid a hand on Sam's forehead and made his world vanish.
---
Sam landed on a pile of lumber just outside the compound perimeter.
"Thanks a lot," he muttered, peeling his spine off the sheet of particleboard. Cursing Cas for not beaming him someplace more convenient, preferably on his feet, he brushed the dirt off his hands and started hiking toward the camp. He remembered enough of Dean's descriptions to get inside without much difficulty and find his way to his brother's cabin.
There was a single guard walking the perimeter, but he was clearly a civilian, just didn't have the training Sam did, and Sam knew where to apply pressure (squeeze) and the guy was out, napping on the grassless dirt. Sam approached the front door, nudged it open.
He knew Dean would be aware of his presence by now. His Dean had an almost inhuman knack for waking to full awareness at any break in routine during his sleep cycle. Sam figured future Dean had sharpened these skills. Or else he hardly slept. He wasn't surprised by the punch in the face, though the knee to the groin was a little unexpected. He managed a glancing jab off Dean's jaw that gave him time to stammer an explanation.
"It's me, Sam. Past-Sam to you, I guess. Ow! Jesus, Dean, would you stop it a minute?"
Dean lowered the fist that had just split Sam's lip in two. He slid a long, mean-looking knife (Ruby's) from his boot and held it at the ready.
"It's me," Sam said softly. "Cas transported me here. Do what you gotta do to prove it, but I swear it's me, Dean."
Dean snorted and wiped his bloody face.
"Somehow I doubt holy water and a shaker a salt are gonna do much against the horned one."
"Yeah," Sam admitted. "But Lucifer wants you dead, right? Michael's vessel and all that. So, if I really were him, why would I hang around and chat?"
For a second, Sam thought Dean of the future might just believe him.
"Yeah, no," Dean said. "Nice try, but you don't win the year's supply of snake eyes. You villains are notoriously chatty."
"You know what notorious means?" Sam snarked back. His lip was really starting to throb, and he wanted an ice pack or at least a bag of frozen peas.
Dean stared at him again. Closer to believing than before.
"Cas sent you?" he asked.
Sam nodded.
"Well, then, the pervy bastard oughta remember doing it. Sit down."
---
"I'm serious about the no-leaving-the-clubhouse," Dean said, hanging up the phone. "It was a bitch convincing poor Mike he 'got dizzy and went to sleep' during his shift. I mean, the guy's a little light in the brains department, but still."
"Whatever," Sam said. "It's not like he saw my face." He was whining but couldn't bring himself to care. He didn't know if it was the time travel or Dean's fist, but his head hurt like a bitch.
"Everybody thinks you're Satan, Sam." Dean raked a hand angrily through his hair. "What about that don't you get?"
In all honesty, Sam was having a great deal of trouble with the whole 'being Satan' thing. But he didn't bother trying to explain that to Dean. Instead, he eased back onto the lumpy sheet-bare mattress that passed for Dean's bed, hissing at the pressure on his bruised back.
"I don't suppose you have ice."
"You want your Diet Dr. Pepper chilled, princess?" Rolling his eyes, Dean tossed a water bottle with the label peeled to shreds in the direction of Sam's head.
"I was thinking for my face, dickwad." But he took a long glug of the water.
Sam wondered if there was something about traveling to the future that had a de-maturing effect on him. Of course, that didn't explain why Dean was acting like they were kids again, hurling insults at each other because, obviously, they'd take it. When you didn't have any friends, you couldn't exactly hold a grudge against the brother you spent every minute with.
"I think it's an improvement," Dean said squinting. "All the swelling hides how bitchy you look most of the time."
But he shoved Sam over enough that he could sit beside him on the bed. Stretching an arm up, he pulled the chain on the naked light bulb, which sizzled and then emitted a dim glow. The hand that took Sam's chin, tilted his head back out of the shadow, was obscenely gentle. Sam tried to follow the movement of Dean's eyes as they scrutinized his blemished features: bloodshot eyes, raw lip, the scabbed-over gash on his forehead, where he cut it on the fence. There was something weird in Dean's gaze. It was too … easy. He didn't look as though the very sight of Sam hurt him. Sam. Lucifer's meatsack. What was wrong with this picture?
"I think you'll live to strut another day, Miss America."
And just like that Sam understood. The Dean of this world had already resolved to kill Sam, in order to murder the thing that hunkered down inside him. And that meant, strangely, that he could forgive Sam all his crimes. Had already forgiven him.
Sam reached up to snap off the light on the off chance it would hide the tears in his eyes. He wasn't going to ruin this by doing anything to make Dean uncomfortable. He had his brother back for an hour or two; he was damn well gonna enjoy it.
"My spine could use an ice pack too. Your resident Maharashi—well, the other one—dropped me here on a pile of two by fours. My back feels like a giant bruise."
"Sorry, dude." Dean snorted. "Haven't had ice in a millennia or so."
"A millennia?"
"Feels like." Dean's eyes traveled a vacant path around the small shack before returning to his hands, crushed between his thighs in an effort to warm them. There was something wrong with his eyes, Sam thought. They were duller. Empty of all that made Dean, Dean.
"So," Sam said when the silence had stretched long enough that the ticking of his watch (it still worked, wonder of wonders) sounded like his heartbeat. "What's on the agenda today? Do you know where I am? Other me?"
"You—Lucifer's been laying low. Slaughtering people in Anaheim. Kid stuff."
Sam swallowed. "Ha, ha, that's funny. 'Cause of Anaheim. Disneyland? Kid stuff?"
"I got it, Sam." But he sounded more tired than anything, and Sam told him so.
"You know you can't kill me and save the world if you're not getting enough sleep," Sam quipped. But then Dean made a sound dangerously close to crying, a wet, broken snort, and Sam decided to ease up on the jokes. He'd never been the funny one here.
"Know what sucks?" Dean asked, and at Sam's shrug said, "My one night off this week, from hunting down the thing wearing my brother, and I'm stuck sharing a bed with you."
And that would have been funny—not funny enough to merit a laugh, though maybe Sam should have faked it to be nice—but funny-sad. The same sort of funny-sad-irony that always had a smile playing at Sam's mouth (laugh or cry) when he thought about his six-month old veins getting pumped full of demon blood while, in the next bedroom, four-year old Dean dreamed of angels. Smile or puke.
"Go to sleep, Dean. I can entertain myself a while. I figure Cas'll snap me back to my own time pretty soon." He rose, stretching muscles that sang in protest, and glanced around the shack of a room. It was upsetting to see Dean living like this, and considering some of the places Dean had holed up, that was saying something.
"Like I can drift off to dreamland with you jerking off in the corner. Get back in the damn bed, Sam."
"Okay, one, you kick. Two, I didn't just come here to take a nap, you know. I wanted to see what things are like now."
"You're the devil, Sam."
"Ouch."
"You can't walk around and take in the sights."
Sam rolled his eyes, though Dean was right of course. He wouldn't get very far if he went exploring. Everyone would be gunning for him.
"I'll just sit here, then."
"God," Dean sighed. "Grab a square of skanky mattress. We can have post-apocalyptic story time before I pass out."
It was weird getting into bed with his brother. And, okay, duh, but the weird part was how it wasn't really weird at all. Lying in the dark, their shoulders crunched together out of necessity—neither of them was exactly small—Sam felt his chest open up and the air flood inside him. Like before now, he was in a constant asthmatic state and someone had just shoved an inhaler into his mouth. Dean's arm felt electric-hot against his own. It was probably fever, but Sam was too greedy for human contact (warm, flowing blood) to care. He realized he hadn't slept with anyone since Ruby.
Dean told him about his world, which his Dean had already described in sweeping strokes that made Sam aware of all the pertinent details while allowing him to feel exactly nothing. You don't deserve to know, Dean's lack of elaboration had said to Sam. These people's deaths are because of you, and you don't have the right to know and mourn them.
Sam didn't particularly want to hear about the virus that struck again (struck everywhere this time), the people gone rabid, and the others dead from fear or disease or just plain not caring enough to stay alive. But when this Dean told him these things it felt—not cold, never cold—but separate. As though the Sam responsible for these things, the Sam Lucifer was walking around inside now, was not the same guy lying here beside him. Like this Sam was brother, friend, fellow human being, and they could mourn this new world together. Sam didn't know if he deserved that kindness, but he was damn well gonna take it. He let Dean's voice draw him into sleep.
When he woke up, he was back in his own bed, cold without Dean's heat.
---
The second time Sam asked Cas for a favor, he went in with arguments prepared.
He hadn't intended to go back. When he woke up in his own motel bed, the Dean of the future relegated to Sam's past, he figured that was it. He didn't expect to see future-Dean again until he was putting a bullet in Sam's head, if that was what it came to. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong up there. Up there. As though Dean were somewhere north instead of years from now.
He waited until a night when his Dean was gone, having left the bar with a graduate student or a singer or a goddamn morgue attendant for all Sam knew. He hadn't been listening when Dean tossed him the keys to the Impala, said, "Don't wait up." Sam drove home alone in the noxious drizzle that was worse than real rain. Then he called Cas.
"When Dean went to see our mother, he tried to change things, right? But it was his being there that set events into motion. Or at least, he fit into the story. He was part of it. What if I'm a part of the future now?"
He didn't say that he thought the Dean of the other time needed him, and he definitely didn't tell Cas about the psychic stuff—not visions now, but physical sensation. Razor swipes of pain that took his breath at odd times. A body-wide weariness when he should have plenty of energy. And most disturbing, maybe: the sensation of mucus resettling in the back of his throat when there was none there. Sam didn't know how he knew it, but the Dean of the future was sick.
Cas was sitting on the bed, that stupid trench coat fluting behind him. In the pale yellow of the lamplight, Cas's face looked jaundiced.
"I feel like one of the women Dean has intercourse with and never calls again," Cas said. "I wish you wouldn't lie to me, Sam."
Sam blinked, less surprised by Cas calling him out than by his own twinge of shame. He opened his mouth to reply, not apologize but say something, but then Cas was tapping his head again, and Sam was falling, falling.
---
This time, Sam made it to Dean's cabin with little trouble. He was impressed with his own stealth until he realized the reason for his easy time. Dean was out, off on some mission, and as a result security was fairly lax around his shack. Sam wasn't going to complain. Inside, he stripped off his wet clothes—by some weird cosmic coincidence, it was raining here, too—and fell into Dean's bed in his boxers. He woke to the sound of Dean coughing in the darkness.
"Hey," Sam managed, struggling out of a sleep that was surprisingly deep given the circumstances. "You're back," he said, which was pretty lame but prevented him from asking if Dean was okay.
Dean finished hacking into his arm, frowned a moment, and looked up.
"Didn't I already get my visit from the ghost of geeks past?"
"Yeah," Sam said, not bothering to be insulted. "I came back. Hey, how do you know I'm me?"
Dean grabbed a water bottle off the desk, took a long swig before answering.
"Satan's only book-evil," Dean said. "Even he couldn't think up coming home to six foot five inches of wet kid brother in my bed."
Sam waited.
"Plus I holy-watered the hell out of your feet while you were asleep."
He started coughing again, and Sam threw off the blanket and climbed out of bed.
"What the hell were you doing out in the rain? You're sick, freak." He figured he only had a certain amount of time before Dean shut him down completely. Sympathy or, God forbid, pity would have been a rookie mistake.
Dean muttered something, but the words were lost in a fit of coughing. He managed to catch his breath, though not without effort. Began methodically stripping off his wet clothes and laying them over a chair.
"You're the leader, Dean," Sam attempted. "These people count on you. You can't go taking dumb chances like that."
Dean was still shaking, from the coughing fit or the cold, and Sam managed to nudge him toward the bed without getting a black eye for his efforts. He pushed Dean down, went rifling for a hoodie and some dry pants.
"How'd you know I was sick?" Dean said, sticking his neck through the collar of the sweatshirt. The hoodie caught on his head, and he hurriedly stuck it back down again, using one hand to fluff out his hair. For some reason, the gesture struck Sam as absurdly innocent, and he had to bite his lip not to smile. Dean was glaring at him, awaiting an answer.
"You sound like Bob Dylan," Sam said.
Dean groaned.
"Don't fuck with me, Sam, I'm way too tired." He got into the bed, and this time he didn't bother inviting Sam to join him, just scooted to the far side of the mattress so Sam had space.
Sam waited until he was lying down, too, the both of them curved C-shaped and facing each other. It shouldn't have been a particularly intimate position, but Sam felt strange, warm all over. He counted twenty of Dean's freckles, pale against the smoke-white of his face. His hair stuck up from his head in damp, odd angles. He smelled like rain and sickness, cheap soap and also Dean.
"I felt you," Sam said, then flushed. Nice, Sam.
Dean waited.
"Remember when I dreamed about our house in Lawrence? This was similar, except instead of seeing something, I could feel it. I felt that you were sick. I felt sick, too."
"Lucky you." Dean rubbed hard at his chest. Sam wondered if that actually felt good or if Dean was just wallowing.
"Anyway, I asked Cas to send me back—"
"Stop. Dammit, Sam, are you honestly that big of a moron? If Yellow Eyes wants you here with me, for whatever reason, you should be running the other direction. Or, better yet, go back to your own damn time."
The speech had exhausted him. He started coughing again, and Sam dug around in his pocket, located a mostly clean tissue.
"You lost me," he said, handing it over. "What does Yellow Eyes have to do with this?"
Dean glared but took the tissue and hacked into it. When he stopped, he lay back on the bed. His face was damp with sweat now, eyes bright with fever. Sam thought they looked beautiful that way, more alive, and then thought, what the fuck?
Dean crumpled the tissue in his fist, propped himself up on an elbow.
"Last time you had these visions, it was 'cause of the Yellow-Eyed Demon. Right? If you're having them again, maybe it's because he wants you to. He wanted you to know I'm sick so you'd have a big girly freak fest and come back here. That never occurred to you, Brainiac?"
"No. I don't know. It's not the same. For one thing, Dean, Yellow Eyes is dead, remember? And also, this is different. It's feelings, not visions. Trust me on this, okay?"
Dean wasn't wrong to worry. Sam too had wondered at this sudden window into Dean's head, or his immune system anyway. If Sam were being honest, he had to admit that this didn't feel like it came from a place of good or evil. It was just there. A bridge of sorts.
"Bullshit," Dean was saying. "It's all bullshit, Sam." But he sounded too tired to argue much more. "You should have stayed home," he added, allowing his eyes to drift closed.
Sam took the opportunity to pry the tissue from Dean's closed fist.
"Hey," Dean said, but it was a half-hearted protest at best.
Sam unfolded the tissue, wincing at the dark blood clotted in its center. He glanced over to the floor, where Dean's discarded clothes made a damp puddle. Sam wondered if he'd find a matching stain on the sleeve of Dean's t-shirt, where he'd hacked into his arm.
"Dammit, Dean." But his tone lacked accusation. "I don't suppose you saw a doctor."
"We got a dermatologist named Larry in camp. My acne's really under control."
"It's probably bronchitis," Sam said. "Or, you know, consumption, but let's go with bronchitis, huh?" A little optimism never killed anyone.
He got out of bed and started rifling around for water. Fluids and rest were the best bet.
"Consumption sounds sexier." Dean sat up in bed, resting his elbows on his knees. "Sadly, ladies, I've been struck with consumption. As we speak, I'm being consumed."
He waggled a brow flirtatiously, but then he laughed and the laugh turned into a cough. It was almost a full thirty seconds before he was able to catch his breath again.
Sam shoved a water bottle into Dean's hands and waited while he drained half.
"You know, you're one rainy stroll from full-blown pneumonia."
Dean sighed, and when he spoke again he sounded weary. "Do you think this is helping me, Sam? Knowing how it's all gonna end?"
Sam paused, mid tirade. He hadn't really considered how pointless it was, chastising Dean for being careless with his health when the world was ending. Had ended, and if the future was in fact decided, then it wouldn't matter. Dean—both his and the version sitting on the bed, eyes bright with fever—would be dead anyway. In a matter of weeks. Somehow Sam had managed to forget that.
"Dean. That's not. I didn't—"
"Not to mention the fact that maybe getting nagged isn't exactly how I'd have us spend this time. I know we've got issues galore, okay? I remember all of 'em in technicolor. But you still have a brother back in your time. You have me, but I got nothing, Sam."
And that was it. Whatever guilt trip Sam might have intended to lay trickled out of his brain. He stared at Dean, wordless. Dean was already staring at his hands, embarrassed. Sam sat down on the bed. Slowly, he eased back until he was flat against the pillows.
"So," he said. "Is it easier to get laid now that the world's ended?"
Dean snorted a laugh. He lay back, too, and this time his arm pressed the entire length of Sam's.
"Sammy, in this place, I'm James Bond, Indiana Jones and fucking MacGyver rolled into one, disgustingly hot package."
---
The third time, Castiel didn't argue. He heard Sam out, then asked him in that way that was polite while still managing to sound like a command to have a seat on the bed.
"I think you were wrong, Sam: about this being part of the story now. The past is unchangeable, but the future entirely depends on our actions in the present. What Zachariah showed Dean, and what I'm allowing you to experience, is simply one version of the future. I think you've figured that out by now, too. You have your reasons for wanting to be there instead of here. And we both know they're selfish."
Sam blinked, taken aback by how much Castiel seemed to understand. He wondered if his Dean talked to Cas now that he didn't talk to Sam. A part of him (the weird part who had never had a real friend other than Dean) was fiercely jealous. But another part was sort of grateful that Dean had somebody to lean on in all this. Like Sam did.
Cas was watching him, eyes shrewd but not entirely unfeeling.
"Okay," Sam said finally. "If that's true, then why are you letting me go?"
Cas looked at the ceiling to gather his thoughts, then met Sam's gaze again.
"I guess the word your kind would use is guilt. It's not fair what happened to you as a baby, Sam. You had something terrible done to you, and—what's that expression of Dean's? It sucks. But after today, I'm officially through doing you favors. We're even."
Sam nodded, coughed to clear his throat.
"Understood," he said.
Castiel nodded, a little sadly, and touched Sam's forehead.
---
"I don't know why I didn't think of this before," Dean said, grinning as he went to open the door. "Cas! Come in, dude."
From the bed, Sam bobbed his head in what he hoped passed for hello.
He had forced a smile when Dean suggested it, mumbled, "Yeah, sure. The more the merrier, right…?" But he was seriously unenthused about spending tonight—his last with Dean—with Castiel as well.
Of course, the guy who walked through the door, dropped down on the bed beside Sam and gave him a long, lingering hug, was nothing like the Cas that Sam knew.
"Sam. It's so good to see you. I missed you, man."
"Uh, yeah." Sam tried to smile through the total brain-numbing shock. "You too."
"You're a beautiful guy, Sam." Cas laid a hand on the side of Sam's face. "I'm gonna ask you a question, and I want you to be totally honest. Do you want to get high with me?"
While Cas packed a bowl of post-apocalyptic weed, Dean pulled Sam aside. He seemed better, the illness lingering in the low timber of his throat and the ink blots beneath his eyes. But his color had warmed to its usual pink-gold, and he seemed sturdier—like whatever had been in danger of cracking was solid again. Sam couldn't help wondering if that had something to do with the other Sam, and what Dean intended to do to him.
"Sorry, dude. I should have warned you about him." Dean leaned in, and his breath was warm and coffee-flavored. "The apocalypse hit and Cas went a little—well, actually, it made him a normal guy."
Together, they watched Cas gaze fervently at a watermark on the ceiling.
"Sort of," Dean amended, clearing his throat. "Hey, Cas, how you doing, buddy?"
"Dean. Sam. You wouldn't believe the sweet maid I had conjugal relations with yesterday. It was that brunette from B tent, and we joined with each other over and over all night long."
Dean turned to Sam, shrugged.
"We're still working on his slang."
Sam laughed and then partook of Cas's weed and Dean's whiskey until his hands and feet were tingling, his brain gone loose and fluid. He woke up facedown on the bed, panic clogging his throat.
"No, no, no—" he began, breaking off when a familiar hand (don't ask how, but he recognized it be feel) landed on his back.
"Dude, keep it down." Dean's voice, low and near his ear. "You're gonna wake Cas."
Sam slid his gaze to the chair where Cas sprawled, head thrown back and lips parted. He snored softly before shifting and crossing his arms low over his belly. Slowly, Sam pushed himself to a sitting pose, twisting his legs beneath him. He let his heart rate steady. He was still here. Cas—the one who wasn't stoned and asleep at Dean's desk—hadn't yanked him back yet.
Dean was watching him, eyes squinted thoughtfully, red-rimmed from the pot. His hair was mussed from running his hands in it: a drinking habit of his.
"You okay, Sam?"
"Mm, yeah." Sam shoved some of his own hair off his forehead. "Yeah, I'm good. I'm, uh, just glad to still be here, you know?"
He looked at Dean sideways, waiting for the joke. It didn't come.
"Me too," Dean said quietly.
Sam stood up unsteadily, legs still tingling like they were asleep. It wasn't just his legs. His whole body seemed to be buzzing. It felt like being electrocuted. Or falling in love.
"You feel like taking a walk?" Dean asked. There was something in his eyes that Sam didn't recognize at first. A few seconds had passed before he realized it was hope.
"Like where there's people?" Sam's head filled with visions of angry villagers.
Dean gave him one of those looks. The kind that said, I know all the secrets, man. Both yours and mine.
"We'll stay off the beaten … beat. And, hey, wear Cas's coat."
He tossed Sam a bundle of fabric, made heavier by its dampness. Sam slipped it tentatively over his shirt, frowned.
"It smells like weed," he sighed.
"Be grateful that's all it smells like."
---
Outside, the air was damp and cool. Sam breathed in, and it smelled like smoke from the fires, the stopgap between rainstorms and Cas's musty, lived-in coat. Sam shoved his hands into the deep pockets and followed Dean on a soundless, ten-minute hike through the dark. They emerged atop a hill overlooking the city, or what was left or it at least. Stray lights scattered throughout the blackness.
Dean stretched deeply before sitting down, and Sam followed suit. Beneath their legs, the wet grass peeled away in dark blades that stuck to their jeans. Dean fiddled with his lighter, sparking it and letting the flame die out again.
"Things suck right now, don't they? In your time."
Sam tore his gaze away from the flame, surprised.
"Of the two of us, I think you drew the crap straw, Dean."
In the east, Sam could see the light from the fires burning the city. Razing it to rubble.
"I meant you and me. Other Me," Dean corrected. "I'm pretty pissed at you, aren't I?"
Sam shrugged, picking at one of the grass stickpins clinging to his shoe.
"I deserve it."
"Leaving that aside," Dean said mildly, "you know you gotta make up with us."
"Always bossing me around." But it was a gentle rebuke, totally lacking heat.
"Always being a dick and not listening."
Sam watched Dean reach out and rip up a couple dandelions from the damp earth. His practiced fingers made a knot of the long stems. Sam shook his head, amused. Something about Dean making dandelion chains as the apocalypse raged in the city below highlighted the absurdity of it all.
"It doesn't feel real," Sam said. "This is like a dream."
"If this is what you dream, then I feel bad for you," Dean said. "There aren't even midgets."
"Lately I only have one dream," Sam said. The same dream, over and over.
Dean's lip started to curl, eyes lighting in that rare smile of his: the one that was goofy and spontaneous.
"Are there midgets?" Dean said, and Sam cut him off, curled a hand behind Dean's skull and kissed him.
Dean's lips were lightly chapped, and his mouth tasted like whiskey. Sam kissed him the way he imagined every first kiss he never got to experience. Joanna Seems, who lived two houses down the summer he was seventeen. She was all dark swish of ponytail and jean shorts, washing her mom's car in exchange for gas money. He had imagined taking the hose from her hands, setting it on the driveway to make rainbows on the hot tar. Cupping her face and kissing so sweetly: almost all lips.
Or Courtney Green, who would have taken the lead when he was nineteen, a sophomore in college and still (not that he'd ever tell Dean) a virgin. She was beautiful and a flirt—had half the dorm in love with her. Sometimes, if she was in the mood, she gifted Sam with a drive-by hug, small, firm breasts crushing themselves on his back. He never got the kiss he wanted—her tight ass in his lap and her tongue in his mouth—but he thought about it often.
Sam kissed Dean like all those not-quite kisses. It wasn't that he'd been thinking for years about kissing Dean. But this—exchanging saliva and comfort and, fuck it, pleasure—was just another level of closeness. It wrote itself on the bottom of a long list that included sewing each other's flesh and sharing hotel rooms and dinners and not having a mom.
They tipped over into the dirt, Sam half on top of Dean. Hands scrabbled, more to hold on than with any intent. Sam flung a leg over both of his brother's.
His brother. It should have been weirder than it was. But then this wasn't his Dean, not really. This Dean was shaken free from the world as Sam knew it, and so for the first time Sam could view him as a stranger. He felt his eyes linger on Dean's face, noticing how, at certain angles it seemed almost too delicate, too breakable, while at other it was strong and beautiful.
By now Sam's lungs were singing, and he knew Dean's would be faring worse. He couldn't bring himself to pull away completely, look Dean in the face, so he only moved far enough to lay his temple against Dean's, one hand flat on the rain-soaked ground.
"Jesus, Sam," Dean said finally. He was breathing heavily again, as though the former illness had ravaged his lungs once more. "Jesus," he croaked, but he didn't remove his forehead from its resting place against Sam's.
Sam breathed Dean in. Lowering his head by increments, he brushed his nose against the smooth patch on Dean's cheek, right before his beard began. He kissed Dean in that spot and had to swallow a groan.
"What do you want to do?" Dean asked finally.
Sam drew back, turning his face into the wind. "Um. We could go shoot some plague victims?" After all, denial and violence were the Winchester way.
Dean scrunched up his nose like Sam was acting crazy. Which, okay, not untrue.
"Sam. I meant, what do you want to do? You wanna do this, right?"
Sam stared because, wow. Yeah. Somehow he refrained from uttering any of the asinine thoughts swirling in his head, the worst of all being, Are you sure?
"Yes," he finally stammered.
"Okay." Dean sounded relieved, and he leaned over and kissed Sam on the mouth.
In spite of Dean's occasional remarks to the contrary, Sam had never been with a man before. He had never even touched a man, not really. Dad hadn't been a hugger, not that Sam especially wanted to think about Dad now. Dean hugged when one of them died, but that wasn't affection. If Dean could, he would have absorbed Sam during those embraces.
This was the first time Sam had felt a man's body stretched over his own, weighing him down. Dean was leanness in motion, as though now that they'd decided to do this he wanted to get right to it. He kissed Sam with intent.
Sam worked open Dean's shirt, screwing his fingers between the gaps. He found Dean's nipple and massaged it with his thumb.
"Do you like that?" Sam managed. It was kind of hard to talk, Dean's mouth doing wicked things to the honeyed place between his neck and shoulder. "Your nipple? Some girls—I mean, people—"
Dean snorted and eased a hand under Sam's head, cupping it for a moment.
"I like. And I want your pants off." Then, blushing (Dear God, Dean could still blush!), he added, "If, you know, pants-off is cool."
Instead of answering, Sam started working on his belt. Dean sat up a little to watch, and Sam glared until Dean started undoing his jeans as well.
"Um," Sam said, "boxers, too, or?"
Dean answered by wiggling a hand down the waistband of Sam's shorts, closing around his cock in a burst of warm-foreign-wonderful. He squeezed harder than Sam did himself, but Sam figured that was how Dean stroked himself and that just made it hotter.
"Fuck," Sam hissed, and Dean chuckled and pressed his face into Sam's chest. Kissed him down the sternum.
Sam gathered up his courage—as much as he wanted this, there was a difference between want and do—and drew Dean out of his shorts.
Dean's cock was warm and smoother at the tip than the base. Sam spent a lot of time touching that part, curling his finger around the head again and again, until Dean ground out a noise like pain.
"Decision time, Sammy. What are we gonna—?"
"I want you to fuck me," Sam said, and whoa. He had to make himself breathe.
Dean rolled the rest of the way off, and for a moment Sam was convinced he'd pushed too hard. That Dean would bolt. Then Dean propped his head on his hand, reached out and brushed some of Sam's hair back.
"It's gonna hurt, Sam—"
"I know." Sam exhaled heavily. "It's okay. I want you to."
"No lube." Dean was kissing his fingers now, sucking them like, well. "Could just blow each other."
"No," Sam said quickly. Now that he's said it, he knew it was what he wanted. Dean's body joining his. They'd been one entity half their lives (The Winchester Boys, SamandDean); it was only right they made it physical. "You could jerk me off and use that for lube?"
Dean choked on the air and started coughing. It was several seconds before he caught his breath. Sam would have rubbed his back if he didn't think it would cost him a finger.
"God, Sam! The condom's lubed, and hey, God gave us saliva for a reason."
"Maybe you shouldn't talk about God right now. Since we know he's real."
"Good point."
Dean's fingers felt weird but also awesome, especially because he jerked Sam the whole time: long, slick slides that made Sam feel like his brain was jerking in time with Dean's hand. Sam wondered if this was how penetration felt to a woman—not the pain or even the vulnerability, but the intimacy of the act. The kind that you forgot, only to remember again, over and over. Someone (not someone; Dean) was inside his body (inside him). Sam forgot it a dozen times, only to remember and be amazed anew.
"Ready?" Dean said. He used one hand to support himself, the other threading in Sam's hair.
"Yeah," Sam said. He knew he shouldn't hold his breath, that it would make things worse, but he couldn't force himself to exhale. "Okay, do it."
"Hey," Dean said, and he kissed Sam easily, tongue licking along Sam's lower lip. "Relax, okay? Just me here."
Dean, once more showing him the way.
"I'm not turning back," Sam said, squeezing his thighs tight around Dean's torso.
Dean nodded savagely.
"Dammit, Sam, you never do."
Sam grabbed the back of Dean's head and yanked him down for a kiss.
---
They didn't cuddle after, not exactly. Because they were men or brothers, Sam wasn't sure. In the gap between orgasm and unconsciousness, Dean rolled onto his side and pressed a hard, closed-mouth kiss to Sam's lips. After, Sam opened his eyes, surprised, and the look Dean shot him was pleading. He rolled off again but kept his left shoulder pressed firmly against Sam's right. The heat was enough to ward off the chill, and Sam closed his eyes again, and slept.
---
When Sam woke, he was standing outside his motel room. It was disconcerting, waking up on his feet, and Sam just stood there a long time, taking in his new surroundings. The night air, a late-autumn kind of cold, washed over his face, making Sam glad he'd wriggled back into his clothes before passing out. Across the street, a car alarm sang in angry protest. After a while, Sam turned and unlocked the door.
Inside, Dean was asleep, flat on his back with one arm scrunched under his pillow. Hand within grasping distance of the knife he kept there. His hair was dry, which meant he hadn't gotten laid. Dean always showered after a date.
Sam sat on the edge of the bed, butt tensed in case he had to make a quick getaway. He had the sudden urge to touch Dean somewhere, anywhere. He wanted badly to run a hand over Dean's wrist, ankle, right knee, and it was only the thought of Dean's eyes, flat and accusatory, that prevented him.
He had to pee but was afraid the sound of the toilet would wake Dean, who would start asking questions. Maybe he should just go to bed. But his bladder protested the thought, and Sam just sat there, frozen with indecision. He was still sitting on the bed three minutes later when Dean jump-started awake.
"What the fuck, Sam?" But he didn't sound angry so much as tired.
"Sorry," Sam said lamely. "I didn't mean to wake you." He started undressing mechanically: button-down, t-shirt.
"So where you been?" Dean asked around a yawn.
"Hmm?" Sam asked, still stripping. He realized too late that he'd left his boxer briefs back on the hill. Breathing slowly—one shaky, labored inhale at a time and he could get through this—he settled for undoing his belt and the top button of his jeans.
"What were you doing?"
By now Dean was alert enough to try to hide the suspicion underlying his words. Sam tossed him a glance to show the line of questioning wasn't appreciated before raising the covers like a cave and crawling inside.
"Sam?"
Dean of the future was wrong. Sam didn't have a brother but an interrogator.
"I can tell you what I wasn't doing, Dean. Wasn't out sucking off demons."
He braced himself for the fight in which Dean would say:
Do you think that's funny? followed by some condemnation including the words, Demons, blood, Ruby, skank bitch.
And Sam would want to say:
Didn't you see? I killed her. She's the second woman I murdered after I screwed her. And it all gets really old.
But of course he couldn't actually say all that so he'd just say: Screw you, Dean.
He was well into the conversation that played on repeat inside his head most days when he realized that weird sound in the room was Dean laughing.
"What?" Sam demanded, and Dean just snorted again.
Sam flipped back his duvet cover, which was yellow and printed with what had once been daisies, and sat up enough to watch Dean toss back his own blankets. He stood, stretching muscles sore from overuse.
"Sucking off demons? That's pretty filthy, Sammy."
And then they both stopped, just for a second, just long enough for that extra syllable on his name to register. Then Dean was rolling his shoulders, "Gotta piss," and heading toward the bathroom.
Sam didn't think. He shot a hand out and snagged Dean's wrist.
"It won't work," Sam said quietly.
Dean twisted to break free of Sam's grip.
"My dick? I'm pretty sure it will, if you let me get to the—"
"We won't work, Dean. Not like this."
If they kept going this way, silent strangers made to share a dinner table, they'd end up at the future Sam just left. They'd wind up killing each other, or killing themselves to save the other's having to. Had Cas counted on that all along? Sam seeing what Dean had become and stopping it? No, Cas was as lost as the rest of them.
Dean was rubbing his temples like he could erase a few years' worth of memories.
"Yeah," he said finally. "I know."
"We're gonna have to talk, Dean. Soon"
"I know that, too, Sam. But we got a case in the morning. Guy was eaten by his own car." Dean shot him a look, eyes pleading. "Soon, but not tonight."
"Okay," Sam agreed. "Not tonight."
Dean moved toward the bathroom, reached out and grabbed something from Sam's hair.
"Hey—" Sam started.
"Grass?" Dean smirked. "Find a motel next time, dude."
Dean went into the bathroom and peed with the door open.
"You're so disgusting," Sam said warmly.
"Bite me," Dean advised.
Sam lay back against his pillow, tugging the blankets up to his chin. It wasn't much, but it was a start.