AN: This universe just won't let me go, you guys. And I'm not complaining.

No idea how long this fic will be.

Part 1

The Big Piney General Store looks like it was built in the Old West days. The wooden floor boards and shelves are faded, along with the wooden check-out counter. The walls are sparsely decorated with a couple Wyoming license plates, the state flag, a stag head, horse shoes, and a Gil Elvgren poster print of a pouting cowgirl holding a lasso and wearing a yellow blouse, red pants, and white boots. Although the general store stopped offering P.O. boxes in the early 2000s, the old cubby holes remain attached to the side wall behind the counter. There's a little silver bell on the door that jingles every time anyone comes in or goes out. In December, the store is decorated with string lights and a live wreath on the door, a mini Christmas tree on the counter and stockings hung on nails in the wall.

The store sells postage stamps, loose leaf lined paper, pens, engine oil, tire chains, five pound sacks of road salt, fireplace logs, knife sharpeners, bars of soap—some of which is locally made, pain medication, band-aids, toothbrushes, toothpaste, light bulbs, batteries, razors, deodorant, scented candles, laundry detergent. There's sugar, coffee, four brands of flour, baking soda, chocolate chips, cereal, oatmeal, trail mix, a spice rack, cans of nuts, pickles, local honey, sliced bread, dinner rolls baked and sold by a local resident, soup cans, peanut butter, eight kinds of homemade jam, barrels of apples and potatoes and onions. A limited amount of perishable goods are stored in one cooler near the back on the eastern wall: milk, cream, orange juice, iced tea, butter, lemonade, eggs, and soda cans. Up at the check-out counter, there are cigarettes and chewing tobacco, plastic lighters and basic Zippos, butane fuel, pocket knives, key chains, mini flashlights, chewing gum, and boxes of ammo for shotguns and rifles. There's a periodical stand with a smattering of magazines and newspapers, including the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle and the Pinedale Roundup.

His first winter in Wyoming, Sam goes into the store one afternoon looking for coffee and notices the tea selection. There are boxes of tea bags, the same common brands sold in just about any grocery store, but there are also more expensive, less widely available brands in attractive packaging. A few of the teas are loose leaf: black rose, earl grey, lemon green, a sleep blend of chamomile and lavender. He chooses the rose tea and the sleep tea, after reading the labels on every flavor and standing before the shelves for a long minute or two. He tucks one bag in his right arm next to the coffee can and holds the other bag in his opposite hand.

He asks the clerk if the store sells tea strainers, and the clerk shows him the one and only strainer they stock, a basic metal item with fine mesh that will sit on the rim of most mugs and glasses. Sam throws it in his pile, along with a bag of Peanut M&Ms for Dean.

It isn't until he's ten minutes down the road outside of town that he realizes they don't have a kettle.

Wyoming winters are long and brutal, snowfall heavy and frequent, the cold so biting sometimes that people have to cover every inch of skin except the area around their eyes when they go outside even for ten minutes. Sam and Dean aren't used to it, although they've seen their fair share of cold places in the States during their hunting career. Dean hates it more than Sam does, seems to feel it more too. He bitches about the cold, the snow, the wind and freezing rain almost daily from November until spring finally breaks in May.

Hot tea becomes a staple for Sam during the winter after that first purchase at the general store. The following year, he's already got a small collection of teas accumulating in the pantry that continues to grow and change over time. He orders it online, buys it whenever he's in Rock Springs, returns to the general store in Big Piney for the loose leaf blends. He drinks tea almost every day, usually in the evenings, when it's cold outside. Dean teases him about it at first, but eventually even he gives into drinking the stuff. He comes down with a nasty cold that first winter that turns into bronchitis after two weeks, and Sam mainlines tea into his brother like it's got actual healing properties. After that, Dean is a lot less resistant to drinking it on occasion.

Tea is comforting, Sam finds. He likes to brew himself one or two cups when he's settling in with a book or other reading material. He makes tea when he's sad or when something's on his mind. He drinks a lot of it when he's sick and asks for it when he's in pain. He brews tea when Dean or Cas is ill, down in the dumps, anxious, worried, or disappointed—which fortunately isn't often after their first few years in Wyoming, once Dean gets his depression and PTSD under control. He makes tea for Leah whenever she's in need of comfort and invites him to her house for a talk. She smiles at him the first time he does it, calls him sweet.

His brother prefers hot apple cider, often spiked with bourbon, or coffee during the winter months. Dean can drink coffee at any time of the day or night, and he'll empty the morning pot into a thermos and take it to work, even after drinking a mug of it. Sam orders him some fancy coffee beans for Christmas one year and after that, Dean starts experimenting and collecting good coffee the same way Sam does with tea.

There isn't a Starbucks in town—the nearest one is an hour and a half away in Jackson—so Sam learns to make do with diner coffee and homebrewed tea.

On a gloomy day in early April, right around the one year anniversary of the Winchesters' move to Wyoming, Sam wakes up early and slips into the kitchen, past Dean's bedroom door. He looks at the calendar tacked to the wall next to the refrigerator, sees the anniversary day that Dean circled in red marker where he wrote ONE YEAR!, and feels some kind of depression settle over him like snow on a pine tree. He fills the kettle with tap water, which comes from the well dug deep on their property, and starts it boiling, standing before the kitchen sink with his arms crossed and looking out the window.

He woke up sad, and he doesn't know why. He knows that he and Dean have been going through some kind of process since they got here, experiencing emotions they suppressed for decades, and he understands that it's hitting them in waves, layers peeling away one by one as they get closer and closer to some kind of core. But he doesn't like it when he can't make sense of his own feelings. It reminds him too much of being possessed. If he's sad, there should be a reason—and he almost laughs to himself as soon as he thinks that because the problem probably is that there are too many reasons, even if they're all years old.

He's been thinking a lot lately about finding a therapist. He's pretty sure he needs one and wants one, but the trouble is that he can't talk about anything that matters with somebody who is unaware of the supernatural. Even trying to get through one session with elaborate lies and made-up stories about a life he never lived, to talk about the one he did, would exhaust him. He can't make any real progress without laying it all out for his counselor. There should be ex-psychologists turned hunters willing to serve other hunters, and maybe there are a couple. But even though he's only a year removed from hunting, even though he's Sam Winchester, reaching out to someone from his old world doesn't feel right or possible.

For now, he's at an impasse.

He spoons some loose leaf rose tea into the strainer and pours the hot water over it, into the mug. He watches as the tea leaves and rose petals expand, steam rising from the mug. He steeps the tea for five minutes, then moves the strainer to an empty glass and takes his mug to the kitchen table, sitting with his back to the entrance of the room. As he waits for his tea to cool, he tries not think about any of the traumatic crap of his past or worry about how he's going to recover for real without any professional help. He tries not to think about Dean either because he's almost more worried about his brother's mental health than he is about his own. It doesn't help that Dean, same as ever, refuses to acknowledge that he even needs help.

"Hey," Dean says in his husky morning voice, shuffling into the kitchen.

Sam peers over his shoulder. "Hey. You're up early."

"So are you." Dean pulls the carafe off the heating plate in the coffee machine and fills it with water in the sink.

Sam watches him, touching his tea mug with his fingertips to test the heat.

Dean pours the water into the coffee maker reservoir and sticks the carafe back on the heating plate. He opens up the bag of coffee grounds that they keep on the counter and starts filling up the filter. "You sleep okay?" he asks. He still looks half-asleep himself, like he could go straight back to bed with that coffee.

"Yeah," Sam says. "Fine."

Dean glances at him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Dean switches the coffee maker on and sits across the table from Sam. "Sam, after all these years, you're going to have try harder than that if you want me to believe you."

Sam purses his mouth and wraps his hand around the handle of his mug, leaning back in his chair. "I just woke up in a bad mood, okay? It's no big deal."

"That may be true, but I know you. You're brooding about something. Or trying not to. So what is it?"

Sam sighs. His brother's like a dog who won't stop gnawing on a bone, sometimes—but then again, Sam's always been like that even more. "I just want a therapist I can actually talk to, that's all. I know you think therapy's for crybabies, but spare me the criticism."

Dean pauses for a moment, as the coffee percolates behind him, the sound filling the kitchen. "I'm not going to give you a hard time," he says. "Just because it's not for me, doesn't mean you shouldn't try it if you want."

Sam looks at him, a little surprised. "Yeah, well—that's the problem. I can't. Not without pretending to be someone I'm not and keeping all the shit I need to work through a secret. And I guess even if I could be honest about what I've been through, my therapist wouldn't know how to help me anyway because... because they've never treated anyone who's been through the same things. There's no protocol for counseling someone who's been to Hell, literally."

The coffeemaker goes quiet, but Dean doesn't get up. He looks at Sam and doesn't reply at first. "Yeah, but—trauma is trauma. Isn't it? I mean, PTSD, anxiety, depression, whatever—it's all the same crap, at the end of the day. It doesn't matter what yours is about, at least not the person treating you. The way they treat the problem is the same, whatever the cause. So maybe a civilian therapist would be able to do more for you than you think."

He's got a point.

"If I could tell the truth," Sam says. "But I can't, and if I can't, then what's the point? I don't want to dance around the real issues. That's all we've ever done. It'd be a waste of my time, going to therapy and doing that."

He sips his tea, which is hot but drinkable.

Dean gets up to pour himself a cup of coffee and returns to his seat with it. He looks at Sam for a little while, coffee steaming before him. "You could talk to me," he says.

Sam just stares at him. He spent years wishing he could do just that, wishing that Dean would talk to him too. But now, as earnest as Dean is about offering to listen, Sam knows that his brother is in no shape to help Sam slog through a lifetime's worth of pain and trauma in any kind of productive fashion.

Dean looks down into his coffee.

"Dean," Sam says. "It's not that I don't want to talk to you. It's just... you're not a mental health professional. You can comfort me and you can understand, better than anyone, but... that's not the same thing as helping me get better, you know?"

Dean glances up at him. "Yeah, I guess," he says.

Sam almost sighs again and rubs at his forehead with one hand. "Anyway, don't worry about it. I'm just in a funk today. It'll pass."

They sit there in silence for the next several minutes, drinking their coffee and tea.

Dean gets up to go put his empty mug in the sink, and even though Sam's finished too, he stays in his seat.

"You going back to bed?" he asks.

"Nah," Dean says. "Think I'll go for a walk or something."

Sam nods.

Dean passes him by on his way out of the kitchen, then stops. Sam listens to him coming back toward the table. He steps up behind him and grasps Sam's shoulders in his hands, grip as firm as it's always been. Sam tenses in surprise, just for a few seconds, before relaxing into his brother's touch. Dean starts massaging Sam's shoulders, moving his hands back and forth along their wide expanse. Sam isn't half as beefed up with muscle as he once was in his twenties, although he does continue to work out, but his frame is just as big as it's always been. Dean sometimes nags at him about not eating enough, and Sam has to remind him that he's not a hunter anymore, which is the real reason he's thinned out so much.

Sam closes his eyes as Dean kneads his muscles. It feels really good, all that gentle strength in Dean's hands. He holds back a noise of pleasure when Dean rubs his neck, digging along the base of Sam's skull with his thumbs.

"You'll be okay," Dean says, his voice deep in the quiet kitchen.

It's just as much of a wish as a claim. Sam can hear it.

Dean's hands fall away, and Sam almost asks his brother to stay and keep massaging.

Instead, he lets the other man disappear to his bedroom. He decides to pour himself another cup of tea and do some reading.

The second birthday Dean has in Wyoming, Sam buys him a heather gray sweater with a shawl collar. It's not Dean's style, but when Sam saw it online, he decided it would look good on his brother. And more importantly, it would help keep Dean warm. Dean tries the sweater on as soon as he opens the box Sam packed it in, and they're both surprised at how flattering it is on him. It's the softest piece of clothing either one of them owns, Sam's sure of it. He rubs the cuff of one sleeve between his fingers after Dean takes the sweater off, wondering if he should order one in a different color for himself. Dean doesn't say a word about sweaters being uncool.

Six weeks later, in the middle of March, Sam comes home from work to find Dean stretched out on their living room sofa with his eyes closed, hands folded on his belly. He's wearing the sweater, a cream-colored t-shirt peeping out from underneath it. He's got a fire burning in the fireplace. Sam stands near the sofa in silence for a moment and looks at Dean, who looks so relaxed that he might be asleep. He's overcome with love for his brother then, tender and emotional. It's a moment, like so many others he's had since they moved to Wyoming, where he can hardly believe that this is his life now. Everything in it is beautiful, he has a real home, his brother's alive and well and they're together and there's no more hunting, no more danger, no more saving the world. He is so grateful that he can't speak.

Dean opens his eyes and looks right at Sam. "Hey," he says. "Didn't hear you come in. How long you been standing there?"

Sam's mouth wobbles with a smile. "Not long."

"What time is it?"

Sam checks his watch. "Six twenty-five."

Dean pauses, watching him. "You okay?" he says.

Sam nods, his throat still tight with emotion.

"Something happen at work?"

"Dean, I'm fine," Sam says. "What do you want for dinner?"

"I'm making beef stew. You're off for the night." Dean sits up, swings his legs off the sofa, and gets on his feet. He goes around the sofa to where Sam's standing behind it and grabs his brother by the shoulder, looking at him square in the eye.

Sam doesn't know what he's doing, but he looks back.

Dean lets go and passes him on his way to the kitchen.

Sam follows, a few paces behind. He watches Dean pull a couple beers out of the fridge. Dean pulls his key ring out of his back pocket and uses the bottle opener to pop the caps off, before offering one bottle to Sam.

They each take a drink, looking at each other in the brighter light of the kitchen. Sam's emotional surge has passed, though a feeling of tenderness remains in his heart.

"You hungry?" Dean asks.

"Not really?" Sam says. "I had a big lunch a few hours ago. I think I can make it however long it takes you to cook."

Dean nods. "Good." He grabs Sam's wrist and starts leading him back down the long corridor to the other end of the house.

Sam goes along with him, sipping on his beer a couple times, unsure of what's happening.

Dean takes them into his bedroom and lets go of Sam's wrist. Sam sits at the foot of the bed and watches Dean with a skeptical expression.

"What's up?" Sam asks, holding his beer limp in between his knees.

"When's the last time we lay down together?" Dean says.

That's their code for cuddle: "lie down."

Sam blinks. "Uh, I dunno. A few weeks?"

"Damn near a month," says Dean, standing by his dresser. "And I can tell you're jonesing for it, so here we go."

He drinks the rest of his beer in one continuous pull, tipping his head back to get the last drops, then sticks the empty bottle on the dresser top.

Sam raises his eyebrows. "I'm jonesing for it? Last I checked, I was fine."

Dean pulls the sweater off, up over his head, and throws it on the chair in the corner. Now, he's just wearing the thin, cream-colored t-shirt with long sleeves. "Sam, I know you. Unless you've been getting your cuddle on with Leah where I'm not looking, you're probably starting to climb the walls from hug deprivation."

He unbuckles his belt and drops his jeans to the floor, changing into a pair of sweatpants.

Sam snorts as he lifts his beer to his lips. "You know, if you want to cuddle, Dean, you can just ask. I think we're past the point of pretending that I'm the only one who likes it."

"Yeah, see, you like it," says Dean, climbing onto the bed behind Sam. "So why haven't you asked lately?"

Sam doesn't quite shrug, as he drinks again. "I don't know how often is too often for you. I don't want to turn it into a chore."

The truth is, it was a rough winter. Back in November, Sam had a meltdown after forgetting the anniversary of Jessica's death, their mother's death, for the first time. The weather was worse than last year, which exacerbated his depression. Dean's PTSD flared up pretty bad, and in a terrible mood once, he got into a huge fight with Sam over taking his meds. He took off for a motel in another town, didn't come back for a week and didn't speak to Sam at all the whole time, and while he was gone, Sam cried and worried and felt so lonely, he couldn't stand it. Castiel came down with the flu that knocked him on his ass for two weeks and scared the shit out of the brothers. It's just been the longest five months ever, and it seemed like spring would never come, that maybe things were going to stay bad.

But it's starting to warm up again, just a little, and everybody's been better since the break of March. If they can make it to May, they'll be all right, or so Sam tells himself.

Dean is quiet behind him for a moment. "Well, maybe if we talked about it, we'd come up with something that works for both of us."

Sam looks over his shoulder at him, finds Dean looking at him with a softened expression. It isn't that he has a problem talking to his brother; usually, it's the other way around. It's that Dean's been dealing with his mental health issues, the slow emotional processing of his past—just like Sam has—and that's made him at turns fragile, volatile, defensive, guarded, and vulnerable. Half the time, Sam doesn't know how to approach his brother, and he doesn't want to screw it up.

"So how often do you want to do this?" he asks.

Dean stares at him, eyes glinting. He pauses, maybe hesitant to be honest, then says, "Once a week? Maybe?"

Sam's surprised. "Once a week? Really?"

Dean instantly blushes a little. "I mean, if that's too often, we don't have to. I was just throwing out a suggestion..."

"No," Sam says. "No, that's not too often. Sorry, I'm just—I was expecting a different answer. I could do once a week."

"You don't have to agree just because I asked," Dean says. "This is a negotiation."

"I'm not agreeing just to accommodate you. I'd like it if we did this once a week." Sam smiles to reassure his brother, already feeling some kind of relief in his chest. He's wanted more physical closeness with Dean this past month, wanted to hug him and cuddle, but he never mentioned it because he felt like he shouldn't, for one reason or another. He did cuddle with Leah a couple times, but that isn't the same as doing it with Dean.

"Okay," Dean says. "Once a week, it is. Now get over here."

Sam drains his beer and sets the bottle on the floor between his feet. He takes off his boots and gets up, goes around to the empty side of the bed and pauses. "Put your sweater on," he says.

Dean gives him a look.

Sam just waits.

Dean grabs the sweater off the chair and puts it back on, as Sam lies down next to him. He taps Sam's arm with his hand, and Sam takes the hint, rolling away from him onto his side. Dean lies down behind him and wraps his arm around Sam's chest, folding his other arm snug between them and resting his face against Sam's back. They settle into the position together and relax, closing their eyes and growing quiet. They're both quickly soothed by each other's warmth. Sam feels safe with Dean holding him, and all is right in Dean's world with Sam right up against him.

They lie there together unmoving for a long time, until they're both drifting in and out of shallow sleep. Sam shifts, tugs Dean's arm around him a little tighter, covers Dean's hand on his chest with his own and laces his fingers into Dean's. The sleeve of Dean's sweater is so soft, and Sam knows that eventually, he's going to turn around and hold Dean face to face just so he can nuzzle into the sweater.

He missed this. He needed a lot more of it this past winter, and he's willing to bet Dean did too. Sam wishes they would just drop the charades and their inhibitions and be tender with each other all the time. Whenever they do, he always feels better, so much better than the rest of the time. Part of him doesn't understand why they still do anything else. The other part knows that they're shedding a lifetime's worth of stupid rules and habits in layers, bit by bit, and he just needs to be patient.

Even after two years, they're still figuring this out—their relationship, their lives here, who they are without hunting and how to be. They're getting better, Sam can tell, but they still have a lot of healing to do, more bad days ahead of them. And it's hard. In some ways, facing their own and each other's brokenness and trying to recover from it is harder than anything they experienced in their old lives. They used to run away and hide from their personal crap, their relationship crap, in hunting and saving the world. Use one set of problems to avoid the other. Now, they don't have a choice but to deal with their unfinished business, even the old stuff. Sometimes, they can't talk to each other even if they want to, even if they should, and other times, they argue. They brush up against each other's pain, and it hurts more.

But sometimes, they let their guards down and hold each other like this, show up with complete openness and care. This is what's healing them.

Sam rolls over under Dean's arm and faces his brother, wrapping his own arm around Dean's waist, pulling him close and pushing his face into Dean's chest. Dean cradles Sam's head in his hand and holds it to his heart, and Sam curls his fingers into the sweater at Dean's back.

"Sam," Dean says.

Sam doesn't reply, giving his brother the opportunity to say whatever's on his mind.

When Dean doesn't, Sam lets the silence stand.

He doesn't need to hear it to know what Dean means.

Dean didn't waste any time buying himself a real, decent cowboy hat after they moved into the house. Sam teased him about it for weeks, harping on about Dean's obsession with Westerns and cowboys and that stupid poncho he'd got himself when they time traveled to kill that phoenix. But the more Dean wore the hat, the more Sam couldn't deny that his brother looked good in it, that it suited him somehow. At first, he thought that somebody around town was sure to call Dean out for being a poser, but instead, Sam quickly noticed that cowboy hats and cowboy boots were pretty common in Wyoming, including among folks who had never worked on a ranch in their lives. By the time that first Christmas rolled around, Dean had himself a pair of good cowboy boots to go with the hat, and Sam was about as used to it as he was to Dean's beard.

The following spring, Sam was in a Western wear store, entertaining himself while Dean met up with a woman from Tinder, when he decided to try on a black cowboy hat. He looked at himself wearing it in the mirror, surprised to see that he pulled it off a lot better than he had the last time he wore one as a 20-something year old. The hat fit with his jeans, boots, plaid shirt buttoned down the front, his beard and his long hair brushing his shoulders.

"Looks like a good choice," the older male clerk said, coming up behind Sam.

When Dean's date dropped him off down the street from where Sam waited for him and Dean saw his brother leaning against the Impala wearing the hat, he smiled wide and bright. "Awesome," was all he said.

Sam wears his hat more often than Dean does, now. He wears it in every kind of weather, and now as his fifth year in Wyoming comes to a close, the hat's softened and faded with age and exposure to the elements. He has no idea why he likes it so much.

He's wearing it as he sits behind the wheel of his truck one afternoon, waiting for Dean to come back with his prescription refill of anti-depressants. They carpooled into town today, and Sam just picked his brother up from work fifteen minutes ago. He peers into the driver's side view mirror every couple minutes, watching the pharmacy entrance. It shouldn't take this long for Dean to get his meds, but he's probably screwing around, looking for something to blow money on.

Sam's listening to the one local radio station that sometimes plays music he likes; a soft country song is on now. He casually thinks about what they should have for dinner tonight, looks forward to seeing his and Dean's dog Shooter, contemplates soaking in the epic bath tub that they ordered for Dean a few years ago. He checks the mirror again but still no Dean. He remembers that he needs to tell Dean about going out to the MoL bunker this weekend, to pick up some files and photocopy books. Every few months, Sam makes a trip to Kansas for more supernatural information to add to his digital library and the password-protected hunter's website that he and Dean run. Sometimes, Dean goes to the bunker with him, and sometimes, Sam goes alone. He's got a feeling this weekend, he'll have company.

He glances into the mirror again and sees Dean emerge through the pharmacy's double glass doors clutching a white paper bag in his hand. Dean's grimacing. It makes Sam sit up a little straighter and watch him until Dean swerves out of the mirror's reflection and comes around to the passenger side of Sam's truck. He gets in and sticks the pharmacy bag on the seat between him and Sam.

"You okay?" Sam says.

Dean only looks at him for a second, not trying to hide his frown. "Yeah."

"You sure?"

Dean stares into space, head bowed a little, his expression somber.

"Dean?" Sam says.

His brother looks at him, holding steady eye contact this time. He reaches out and takes Sam's hand in his.

"I'm sorry," Dean says, his voice raspy and quiet.

Sam doesn't pull his hand away from Dean's. "You're scaring me," he says.

Dean shakes his head. "I'm sorry for fucking up so bad with you. In the past. I know this is out of left field, but I woke up this morning in a weird mood. A funky one and it just wouldn't go away. It's been hanging over me like a shadow all day. I thought maybe it was just one of those days, you know? The bad ones. But when I saw you pull up in the truck at the garage, I realized that this crappy feeling is about you. See, a couple weeks ago, I was thinking about our hunting days and... everything that we've been through, and I remembered all those times you chose death or tried to, before I interrupted. And I kept trying to figure out why. Why was he so willing to sacrifice himself, why didn't he want to be saved? And I couldn't think of a good explanation so I forgot about it. But today... today, I think I got it."

Sam's staring at Dean and he feels Dean squeeze his hand and doesn't know how to feel about any of this.

"You were suicidal," Dean says. He looks right into Sam's eyes when he does.

Sam wants to protest but doesn't.

"You were suicidal when you threw yourself into the Cage. Hell, it was suicide. We knew that. And then when you wanted to finish the Trials and afterward, when you were in a coma and I—tricked you into saying yes to Gadreel. I never... I never stopped to analyze it, any of it. And I never asked you how you felt. And I know what you're going to say, you're going to say that we had bigger problems to worry about, but that's not an excuse, Sam. I should've asked you how you felt. I should've stowed my bullshit and been a good brother. It's not just about mindlessly saving you. You told me you didn't want to be saved, and I never asked why. I can't even believe it now."

"Dean," Sam says, without know what will come next.

"Wait," says Dean, tugging at Sam's hand a little. He looks at the other man, and the air inside the cab is thick with vulnerability. "I did so many things wrong with you. Not with the world or the universe. You. Us. And yeah, I was young and stupid and doing the best I knew how. But I could've done so much better. And you deserved better. I was always so hellbent on keeping you alive, keeping you with me, that I never asked myself what I could do to make you want to. And I'm sorry."

Sam's throat hurts with emotion, his eyes suddenly watering as his gut clenches.

"I'm sorry, Sam."

Sam nods.

"I knew it was that bad, but I didn't want to see it," Dean says.

"You know I would never leave you like that," says Sam, his voice breaking. "I would never—not even back then, during all those fucked up years, I never would've left you if there was another way."

Dean swallows, quiet for a moment, holding Sam's hand on his knee. "This isn't about me. This is about you. I never wanted you to be miserable, Sam. Never. And I never wanted you to pay for your mistakes with your life. Your soul. Your mind."

A lone tear rolls over Dean's cheek, as they look at each other.

"I wanted you to be okay," he continues. "I wanted you alive, but I wanted you to be okay too. I just never knew how to make that happen. I couldn't talk to you the way I can now."

Sam squeezes Dean's hand and purses his lips together in a pained kind of smile. "Yeah, well. I'm glad we can talk now."

Dean looks at him, eyes red with unshed tears. "You've suffered so much. I want to help you, but whenever I think about it, I don't know where to start."

"So have you," Sam says. "But you know what? We're better. We're a hell of a lot better than we were five years ago, Dean. And all the progress we've made, we did it together."

Dean drops his gaze and nods.

Sam watches the side of Dean's face, feeling the calluses and worn skin of his brother's hand in his. "I'll never abandon you. I promise."

Dean looks at him again. "I'll never abandon you either."

Sam throws the pharmacy bag into the floor of the truck and slides across the bench seat, pulling his brother into a hug. Dean hugs him back with both arms, hands curling into Sam's jacket. Sam's hand feels heavy on Dean's back, and it's a welcome weight.

"I love you," says Sam, his eyes closed. The sheer power of the feeling leaves him a little breathless.

"Love you too," says Dean, his voice rougher and deeper.

They hold onto each other for a little while longer, before coming apart and returning to the opposite ends of the seat.

Sam shifts the truck into gear, and Dean swipes the cowboy hat off his head, putting it on his own.

They don't speak the whole way home, listening instead to the radio.