"How old were you the first time I – you know. The first time," Dean asks Old Sam when he shows up a few days later, after Dean's had a few minutes to kiss him and feel him up and Old Sam has captured Dean's wrists in his giant paws because he always has to control everything, the little bitch.
Old Sam grins at him, and suddenly the room is brighter, as it always is when Old Sam smiles.
"You mean the first time I kissed you," Old Sam clarifies with a low chuckle.
"No way," Dean shakes his head. "I'm totally the guy in this relationship. Plus I'm older. So when I first kissed you, how old were you?"
"I was fourteen," Old Sam says. "And you were horrified."
Dean stares, trying and failing to imagine a situation in which he would lay one on a fourteen-year-old.
"But there were little moments, even before that," Old Sam goes on, still grinning. "You let me hold your hand sometimes, or lie together in the back seat of the car, when I'm pretty sure you could tell I had a hard-on, but you didn't push me away. You let me kiss your neck sometimes, when we slept together."
"No way," Dean finally finds his voice, shakes his head. "No way was I encouraging you when you were that young. That's just – that's so wrong!"
Old Sam rolls his eyes. "Yeah, whatever. I could be pretty pushy, pretty demanding. It wasn't really your fault."
"Yes, it was, Sam," Dean insists. "I'm the older one. I'm in charge. You – I shouldn't have let that happen."
Old Sam shakes his head. "I was afraid you didn't feel that way toward me," he explains. "You never once let on that you did. I figured you were tolerating my touches, my kisses, because I was your little brother and you were just putting up with me."
"You know how I feel about you," Dean protests, and Old Sam shakes his head sharply.
"Now I do, Dean, but when I was fourteen? You were so careful with me, always. Like I was a fuckin' piece of china or something. Like you were afraid of corrupting me. As if," Old Sam scoffs.
Dean thinks about the little boy who is his brother in this timeline, and he feels immediately the fierce, protective instinct, the overwhelming desire to give Sammy a normal life.
Being in love with your brother is not normal.
"I'm sorry, Sam," Dean says now, looking up at Old Sam with real remorse, feeling tears smarting the backs of his eyes. "I just wanted to keep you safe. I didn't mean to make you feel like a freak."
Old Sam's gaze softens. He runs his thumbs over Dean's cheekbones, then his lips, parting his own lips as he looks at Dean's.
"I'm not the one who needs to hear that," Old Sam says quietly. "For me, that kiss happened twelve years ago."
Dean makes a silent vow that when his fourteen-year-old brother lays one on him, he will not freak out.
"When you were four, you used to tell me you were gonna marry me someday," Dean says. "You remember that?"
Old Sam shakes his head.
"I used to tell you, 'Boys can't marry other boys, Sammy,' but you didn't listen. You were a stubborn little bastard."
Old Sam smiles. "In my time, they can," he says, and when Dean lifts his eyebrows questioningly, Old Sam clarifies. "Gay marriage is legal in most of the country now."
"Huh," Dean's only mildly interested; it never occurred to him, the idea of being married to someone of the same gender. Being married in the first place is a state Dean is fairly sure he will never enter.
"Pretty sure that law still don't include brothers," he comments, and Old Sam shakes his head.
"No, you'd be right about that," he agrees, a little sadly, Dean thinks, which is interesting.
"Hey," he's still standing between Old Sam's thighs, hands on Old Sam's warm waist, playing with the belt loops on his jeans with his thumbs while Old Sam caresses his face.
"Hey," Old Sam leans in, and Dean's afraid he's gonna get more of those tender, adoring kisses Old Sam seems to need to cover his face with, so he surges up and captures Old Sam's lips, plundering his mouth eagerly before he has a chance. Their tongues battle and slide and Dean pushes in tight, up against Old Sam's crotch, seeking friction as his hands slip under Old Sam's shirt, finding warm skin, kneading his back muscles in hard, rhythmic grasps before slipping down to his waist again. As Dean's hand pushes under Old Sam's waistband, palming the curve of his ass under his jeans, Old Sam finally gets one hand between them, flat against Dean's chest, and pushes him back, gently but firmly at first, then harder when Dean responds by shoving his hand deeper into the back of Old Sam's jeans.
"Stop!" Old Sam gasps as he finally manages to tear his mouth from Dean's, pushes him back enough to separate their bodies.
"Why?" Dean demands, stumbling back so their only contact is Old Sam's hand on his chest. He's panting, breathless; his lips feel swollen and he's so hard he could cut diamonds. "Why, Sam? Why do you keep pushing me away?"
"You know why," Old Sam's pupils are blown, the front of his jeans look uncomfortably tight, and Dean knows he's fighting his own urge to give in to this need for Dean that Dean wishes he would just give in to, for God's sake. "I can't do this with you. You're just a kid."
"Oh, like you weren't a kid the first time Old Me fucked you," Dean growls, and he knows he sounds petulant, but Goddamn it, this blue-balls thing with Old Sam is getting old real fast.
Old Sam's face turns red, then almost purple, but he won't look Dean in the eye so Dean knows he's right; he's seen Old Sam at sixteen and he knows Old Sam was already fucking his brother.
"You regretted it," Old Sam blurts out, sounding desperate. "You wouldn't touch me for weeks. It – I pushed too hard and you did something you didn't really want to do. I can't – I can't do that to you."
"Sure you can, Sam," Dean steps back, out of Old Sam's reach, and sweeps his arms out. "I'm right here, right now, giving you my permission. What more do you want? A Goddamn gold-leaf invitation with one of those little stamped reply cards?"
Old Sam keeps shaking his head. "I can't, Dean, it's wrong."
"Oh," Dean feels the snark rising in him, can't resist. "Now you're the one who's holding to the moral high ground. It's not enough, me promising to make sure my little brother doesn't feel like a freak for having the hots for his brother. Now you have to make my decisions for me like I'm a little kid. Like I'm the little brother. Well, news flash, Sam: I never had a childhood. I was never a kid, and I sure ain't one now. So you don't wanna piece of this fine ass, fine. I guess I'll just have to find somebody who does."
Old Sam's eyes widen and he looks like he's been slapped.
"You don't mean that," he says, sudden desperation making his voice rise.
"Why not?" Dean tips his chin up defiantly. Damn Sam and his moral standards anyway. "Seems to me somebody taught me everything I know about guy-on-guy action. I kinda figured it was you, but if you can't dig your way out of whatever high-and-mighty hole you've dug for yourself, I might just have to find somebody who can."
Old Sam's mouth opens, then closes again. He's red as a beet and momentarily speechless with what looks like genuine revulsion.
Good.
"You – you don't know what you're asking," Old Sam protests.
"Pretty sure I do, Sam," Dean shrugs. "And I can promise you, I'd rather it was you, but I ain't gonna wait forever."
"Dean, you're – you're a virgin," Old Sam shakes his head.
"By choice, Sammy, by choice," Dean goes for bravado, knows how it usually works to conceal the anxiety he feels, gnawing away just under the surface. "I got girls lined up for the chance to taste this cherry, I can promise you. And I'm pretty sure there's a guy or two, if I start looking. Haven't had any reason to yet, but if you don't want the job – "
"Damn it, Dean, how can you be so reckless and cocksure about something like this?" Old Sam keeps shaking his head, and Dean can tell his shocked-and-appalled act isn't the whole story because he can see the little grin at the corners of Old Sam's soft lips, can see the evidence if his interest in the idea of deflowering his older brother right there between his legs.
"So what'd'ya say, Sam?" Dean prompts, confidence returning in the face of his brother's obvious discomfort. "You gonna do the right thing here?"
"Damn it, Dean, you – you don't even know how impossible you are," Old Sam huffs, shifting his feet in an obvious effort to ease the tightness in his jeans.
Dean saunters closer, looks up at Old Sam from under his lashes, giving him the full force of the Dean Winchester charm and sex appeal.
"You wanna show me, Sam?" he asks, making his voice purr. "You wanna show me how impossible I am?"
Old Sam actually closes his eyes, buries his face in his hands, then runs them back through his hair, and Dean waits, watching the expression on the older man's beautiful face, watching the effect he's having play out on those gorgeous features.
"Fuck," Old Sam sighs, squares his jaw, finally looks back at Dean as he huffs out another breath. "Okay. Listen. Maybe. But you gotta wait. We gotta wait till you're sixteen. Okay? We wait. God, I can't believe I'm saying this."
He seems so uncomfortable Dean almost gives in, almost gathers him into his arms and tells him to just forget it, he'll be fine waiting till Old Sam is ready, they can do it his way.
It's two months till his sixteenth birthday. Two whole months.
Damn.
"You gonna let me make out with you till then?" Dean asks, like he's still negotiating. Like he hasn't won.
"Okay," Old Sam sighs. "Okay. Whatever. Alright."
"If you're younger next time you come, I'm not letting you off the hook," Dean reminds him, and Old Sam shakes his head.
"I'd remember this, believe me," Old Sam says. "No way am I younger next time you see me."
Wow, Dean thinks. I'm gonna fuck a dude almost twice my age.
Okay then.
He tries to keep the anxiety off of his face as he reaches up to tuck a rebellious strand of hair behind Old Sam's ear.
"Hey," Dean smiles, encouraging, and Old Sam glances up, can't stop the corresponding grin that breaks his face open and pours liquid sunshine all over the room. "It's just me."
"Yeah," Old Sam breathes, lets Dean pull him in for a hug, all that giant warm mountain of brother just sagging against him. Dean holds him, feels his weight and thinks about how long he's been huge like this, senses that Old Sam is used to Dean being the smaller man but he still needs to be held, still needs to fall into his big brother's arms. Probably doesn't do it enough.
They stand like that for several minutes, until Dean can feel Old Sam's weight easing, till he starts to fade and shiver, and no matter how tight Dean holds him, he's finally gone, just sliding away back to the future.
Dean is not getting used to this.
It's over two months before Dean sees Old Sam again.
Bobby gives Dean the keys to the Mustang on his sixteenth birthday, just like he promised. Dean takes Sammy out on the car's maiden voyage and they're flying down the highway, and Dean's feeling free and reckless and grateful to be alive, with the music blasting and Sammy smiling at him, and for a wild moment Dean realizes he's happy.
Then all hell breaks loose, of course.
Later, Dean can't even remember what the thing looked like, only that it was huge and dark and had wings and swooped down right in front of the car. Dean slams on the brakes, swerves, and is vaguely aware of feeling the car's tires leave the pavement. The car skids on the gravel on the shoulder of the road as Dean fights for control, almost thinks he's got it. Then the thing swoops in again and this time they're flying, hitting something that slams Dean's head into the steering wheel so that he sees stars, then darkness as the car hits something again, hard. Dean feels the impact in his legs and chest, not even aware that his head has hit the wheel again because he's already out. Just before he loses consciousness Dean thinks about the seat-belts he installed just yesterday, almost as an afterthought.
When he wakes up in the hospital his first thought is for Sammy. He's almost hysterical with fear until the nurses assure him his brother is fine, just a slight concussion and some scratches. The seat-belt did its job, kept Sammy from flying through the windshield when the car went into the ditch.
Dean's injuries are a little more serious. He managed to fracture his skull and both legs, so he'll be hauling himself around on crutches for a few weeks. The car is totaled, needless to say, and John is furious. Dean can hear him in the hall, demanding to talk to his son, but the doctors call security and have him removed because he's already caused a scene in the waiting room, yelling at Bobby for being damn fool enough to give the car to Dean in the first place.
"I gave you one job," John growls at Dean when he finally gets in to visit. "One. Take care of your little brother. And this is how you do it. By taking him out on a drunken joyride and just about getting him killed."
"I'm sorry, Dad," Dean feels himself start to tear up, fights it with everything he can.
He doesn't even bother to argue that he wasn't drunk, that John's the one who does the drinking in the family. Old Sam says it, though. Old Sam is almost as angry as Dad. He's pacing the room, furious, stopping every minute or two to stare at Dean, fighting back his own tears.
"I should've been there to stop this," he says. "I should've made sure you didn't get in that car in the first place. I knew about this accident. I could've stopped it."
"It's not a big deal, Sam," Dean insists. "I'm fine. I'll be walking around again in no time."
"You're more vulnerable than ever now," Old Sam shakes his head. "And it's all my fault."
"Not helpless," Dean says indignantly. "I'm not a baby."
But he's aware he's pretty useless as a protector at the moment, that he won't be doing any hunting for awhile, and that Sammy is at greater risk with Dean out of commission. Not to mention, that thing that flew in front of the car matches the description John has for their old arch-enemy, the Angel of Death with a name like his youngest son's, and that's enough to send John into an obsessive tailspin.
John moves them within the week, installs them back at the cabin in Michigan, leaving them with enough supplies for a month, then he takes off, following up Dean's lead from the night of the accident. The thing that killed their mom may finally be making a move on them, now that Sammy's almost twelve, and John can't wait to go after it. Dean doesn't bother asking about the hunt because he can't go, obviously. He's worse than useless because Sammy has to care for him. He can barely get himself outside to piss, much less stand at a stove long enough to cook, or change his Goddamn pants without help.
Sammy valiantly puts up with his grumpiness, seems to actually enjoy being the caregiver for once, which is so weird for Dean it makes him grouchier than ever. It's bad enough being so helpless that he has to have Sam help him get out of bed. It's another thing entirely for Sam to be so goddamn cheerful about it.
Sammy makes them grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for supper, and Dean can't even lift himself out of his sour mood enough to say thank you. He just wants to get drunk and forget that his dad is out there chasing the Angel of Death without back-up. He rejects Sam's offer to play poker using wood chips after supper.
"Wood chips? Really? Feelin' risky are we, Sammy? Wow, raise those stakes, will ya. Real motivating, thinking about the possibility of winning – oh, hell, I don't know, maybe enough kindling to build me a little campfire to roast my marshmallows? Tempting, Sammy. Seriously tempting."
Then he complains when Sam tries to get his bath water warm enough so he can take a sponge bath. "Don't need a fuckin' sponge bath, damn it! Need a real goddamn shower! Fuckin' cabins in the woods with their crappy primitive plumbing! Fuck this shit! Goddamn it!"
And when Sam helps him into bed, then offers to read to him because there's no goddamn TV or even a decent radio in this crap-shit place. "Aw, you gonna read me a bedtime story, Sammy? Really? Gonna get me a teddy bear to sleep with too?"
Dean knows he's being a bastard, sees Sammy making a real effort, and he appreciates it, really he does. He's just not very good at hiding his feelings sometimes, especially when he's feeling useless and helpless and pissed off about it.
Then Old Sam shows up and things get really weird.
Dean's almost asleep, Sammy curled up next to him, turned away from him because who can blame him? Dean's been such an asshole today it's amazing Sammy can stand to sleep in the same bed at all. But of course it's the only bed, and Sammy still can't sleep unless Dean's right there beside him, even at the considerable age of almost-twelve. He's still little, so he doesn't take up much space, even though Dean's almost six-feet tall now, stretches all the way down the bed and usually likes to sleep on his stomach, which is another cause for complaint because the damn casts – Both legs? Really? – just get in the way of letting him sleep comfortably.
Then the air shifts in that familiar way, but something's wrong. Dean's eyes fly open in the dark cabin and he blinks for a minute, getting his bearings. Sammy's deep breathing is the only sound until Dean hears movement at the end of the bed and feels panic flood his veins like ice water. Then he recognizes the shape of Old Sam, standing there at the foot of the bed, staring down at him.
"Hello, Dean," the familiar voice isn't quite right somehow, like there's something missing. "I'm here to make good on our deal, just like I promised. You still good with that?"
Old Sam's voice is deep, heavy with promise, and it makes Dean's dick twitch, makes all the blood rush to his groin.
But his upstairs brain is setting off alarms. Something's not right.
Dean stares up at Old Sam, but he can't quite make out his face in the gloom, so he can't read his expression, isn't sure whether he's smiling or not. Which is way creepier than it should be.
"Sam? You okay?" Dean tries, keeping his own voice soft so as not to wake Sammy.
Instead of answering, Old Sam crosses around the bed so he's standing next to it, closer, and Dean can almost smell him. Old Sam reaches down, takes hold of the old quilt cover, pulls it back slowly, revealing the stark whiteness of the casts on Dean's legs. Dean's wearing loose boxer shorts and a tee-shirt – his standard bed wear – but he feels oddly exposed, almost naked under Old Sam's gaze.
"Shhhh," Old Sam shushes softly. "Don't wanna wake Sammy."
Okay, now Dean's definitely feeling a little creeped out. He watches as Old Sam sits down on the edge of the bed, starts to lean down like he means to kiss him, slips one warm hand up his chest, over his tee-shirt.
That's when Dean smells him. Or doesn't, which is how he knows.
This is not Sam.
Keeping his movements steady, fast, and fluid, just like Dad taught him, Dean slides his hand quickly under his pillow, then scoots up toward the headboard as he pulls out his gun, trains it on Old Sam – or whatever this is that's trying to pass for Old Sam – and growls menacingly.
"What are you?" he demands, sharp and commanding, and Old Sam backs off immediately, puts his hands up but doesn't stand.
"Whoa, whoa, hey there, Dean, it's me. It's Sam. I swear," he says, and Dean keeps the gun trained on him with one hand as he reaches for the light, switches it on. He's aware of Sammy rolling over next to him, awake and watchful, silently blinking in the sudden light.
Old Sam is wearing black, that's the first wrong thing that Dean notices. His black jeans are tight-fitting, his black button-down shirt is immaculate and form-fitting, rolled up at the elbows to expose his massive forearms and an expensive-looking watch. He's got his hair swept back, and there's a certain sheen to it, like he's got something in it to hold it in place.
"Who are you and what have you done with my brother?" Dean demands.
Old Sam – or whoever this is – shakes his head a little, purses his lips – then disappears.
For a moment Dean keeps the gun trained on the place where the creature sat, still on high alert, half-expecting it to re-materialize.
"What was that?" Sammy asks, and his high anxious voice brings Dean back to himself. He lets out a sigh, didn't even realize until that moment that he was holding his breath. He lowers the gun, flips the safety on and tucks it away under his pillow before he answers.
"I dunno."
"Was it – was he – " Sammy frowns, obviously struggling to make sense of half-remembered moments in his past when this had happened before, when Old Sam had appeared and he was their friend, someone to be trusted.
"Some kind of monster, yeah," Dean nods. "Definitely."
They leave the light on that night, and pretty much every night from then on, the idea that something could just appear in their room while they're sleeping leaving both brothers unsettled and anxious.
**/**
It's almost two more months before Old Sam appears again.
Dean's out in the woods, hunting wild game because – well, John didn't make it back and they're stranded here with no car, no phone and their stay at the cabin has become another wilderness training exercise, whether John intended that or not. Luckily, the well hasn't run dry, plus they have the lake, so there's plenty of water. The propane tank ran out a month ago, though, so they've been cooking outside – it's early spring, and the snow is almost gone, and although it gets cold in the cabin at night there are plenty of blankets and as long as they huddle together for warmth –
At least the lights are still working.
With Sammy's help, Dean used the hedge-clippers in the cellar to help remove his casts a week ago. The white, puckered skin of his legs makes them look weak and useless, but the bone seems healed and he can stand without crutches now. He does exercises to force his atrophied muscles to work again, takes long walks in the woods. When the weather warms up a bit he'll go swimming in the lake.
Sam builds traps and they've had rabbit stew for the past month. They found a bag of potatoes in the cellar, even dug up some frozen carrots that had been left in the garden from last year's harvest. The fact that somebody planted them, tended them, then left for the winter is somehow encouraging to Dean. The cabin still gets used occasionally, he tells himself, and maybe whoever used it last year will be back when the weather gets warmer, so they won't have to try to walk out on their own.
Dean's deer-hunting because he's getting a little tired of rabbit. No, scratch that. He's getting a little tired of Sam providing all the food. Getting the casts off was a huge step toward reclaiming his rightful place as the head of this family – well, as the older brother, anyway. The stream leading into the lake is a major draw for large game, so all Dean really has to do is hike up far enough away from the cabin that there are no more cooking smells on the breeze, conceal himself in the underbrush, and wait.
Dean hears a twig break before he sees anything. He raises his gun, holds it steady, waits again. Branches sway as something brushes them and Dean keeps his eyes trained in that direction, still waiting. Something camel-colored moves behind a tree, brushes a branch, and another twig breaks. It's big, Dean's sure of that, and the right color –
The branches part and Old Sam is standing there, across the stream, staring at him. He's dressed as he usually is, in layers of flannel and canvas, baggy jeans and stupidly long, unkempt hair, and Dean is so relieved to see him he almost cries. He looks older, thinner, almost emaciated, like he's been sick, and he watches Dean warily as Dean puts his gun away, shakes his head at him.
"Thought you were a deer," he says as he stands up.
Old Sam takes a step back, puts his hands up like he expects Dean to attack him. He's got this wild-eyed, almost panicked look on his face, confused and frowning and more than a little disoriented.
"Sam? You okay?" Dean's sure this is his Old Sam this time, but something isn't quite right. Again.
"Where am I?" Old Sam asks, still half-turned away, like he means to make a break for it if Dean tries anything.
"It's 1995, Sam," Dean answers. "Blue Star, Michigan. The spring after the car accident. Remember?"
Old Sam's frown deepens, like he's making a serious effort to understand, like he doesn't even recognize Dean, much less hear what he's saying.
"What's going on, Sam? You hit your head or something?"
Dean takes a step closer, puts his hands out like he's approaching a wild animal and doesn't want to startle him. Old Sam twitches, a look of panic flitting across his face, and Dean thinks he might just bolt, take off into the woods at a dead run and never be seen again – Which is crazy scary and Dean doesn't even want to think about when in the future Sam becomes so terrified of his own brother –
At the last moment, Old Sam's face clears, like he suddenly recognizes Dean, and his body language completely changes, relaxes.
"Dean?" he asks hopefully.
"Yeah, buddy, it's me," Dean nods encouragingly. "What's going on with you, huh? You okay?"
Old Sam shakes his head a little, looks around like he's realized where he is for the first time, like he didn't even notice before. Dean steps over the stream, moves right into Old Sam's personal space so he can smell him, takes a deep breath.
Brother. All brother.
He's so relieved he doesn't even stop to think, just grabs Old Sam and pulls him in, wraps his arms around him and buries his face in his neck, gulping in deep breaths of Sam's sweat-soaked, spicy scent.
"Good to see you, buddy," Dean murmurs against Sam's warm skin. "So good. Where you been, huh? Where the hell you been?"
Dean pulls back so he can look up into Old Sam's face; he pushes the hair back from his eyes and leaves his hand there, brushes his thumb across Old Sam's soft, pink lips. Old Sam gazes back at him, eyes glistening with emotion, forehead wrinkled with that familiar compassionate look of his...
Damn, Dean loves this man. Loves him so much it's like he can't even breathe when he's not there, like all his breaths are shallow whispers of the way he breathes when Sam's in his arms like this. He curls his fingers around the back of Old Sam's neck, coaxes him to lean his face down so Dean can kiss those soft lips, so he can run his hand through Sam's silky dark hair as he does it. He slides his tongue into Sam's warm, wet mouth and grinds his hips against Sam's thigh, hearing himself moan low in his throat. Old Sam has his arms completely wrapped around Dean's body, one hand clenched around Dean's shoulder, kneading the muscle, holding him steady as Dean plunders his mouth.
"Been so long, Sam," Dean gasps when he finally pulls back to catch a breath, dragging Sam's scent deep into his lungs. "Missed you so much."
"Right here, Dean," Old Sam murmurs as Dean mouths his jaw. "Always right here."
"Need you," Dean grinds his hips into Sam's leg, so his meaning is clear. "Wanna fuck you, Sam."
Old Sam shivers, slips one huge hand behind Dean's head and turns his face so he can capture Dean's mouth, silences him with a kiss in which Sam takes the lead, holding Dean where he wants him so he can plunge his tongue into Dean's mouth, sucks and nips at his lips until they're sore and swollen. But when Dean works his hand down between their bodies so he can palm Old Sam's dick, Old Sam pulls away, grabbing Dean's biceps so he can hold him at a distance.
"No – I – no," Old Sam gasps. He's breathing hard, face flushed and pupils blown, and Dean could swear he was getting the right signals, so –
"I'm sixteen now," Dean reminds him. "You said – I thought – "
Old Sam grimaces, shakes his head.
"Could we just – I mean, I – It's fuckin' freezing out here, dude," Old Sam hems and haws, finally falling back on the obvious as he pulls his jacket closed, shoves his hands into his armpits, stomps his feet.
Dean raises his eyebrows, steps close again, lowering his eyelids then raising them slowly with a look that usually gets him what he wants.
"Well, I know a way to warm up," he drawls suggestively, slipping his hands under Old Sam's jacket so he can grab his belt loops and pull him in again.
But Old Sam isn't having it. He pulls back, shaking his head, blushing furiously but unable to look at Dean.
"I can't," he says. "I want to – God, Dean, you have to believe I want to – but I – I just can't."
"What now?" Dean demands, throwing his hands up in frustration. "You afraid of knocking me up or something? Cuz I got protection, Sam, I promise."
"Oh my God, Dean," Old Sam protests. "No. That's not it. It's – it's not you, okay?"
Dean frowns, confused and more than a little hurt by Old Sam's rejection.
"So we're back to 'let's just be friends,' Sam? Is that it? Cuz you seemed pretty into it a couple of minutes ago."
Old Sam shakes his head, chewing on his bottom lip in that distracted, pained way he has that pushes all of Dean's protective buttons because something is definitely not right here. It reminds him of something, and now he can't get it out of his head, so he shifts his feet, widening his stance and squaring his shoulders, and just goes ahead and asks the thing.
"Does this have anything to do with what happened last month?"
Old Sam's eyes flick up to Dean's and he stares.
"Last month?" Old Sam echoes, confused.
Now it's Dean's turn to look away, shift uncomfortably. "Yeah, you – Well, not you – definitely not you – when I was – when I had my casts on and you – "
The look of horror that slowly spreads across Old Sam's expressive face is as fascinating as it is terrifying, and Dean can't help staring, clearing his throat nervously.
"Oh my God," Old Sam whispers. "Tell me I didn't – I didn't hurt you, did I, Dean?"
"Wait." Now Dean is completely confused. "So that was you? That thing with the clothes and the hair and the – the smell – That was you?"
Old Sam looks so pained and unhappy that Dean steps closer again, the instinct to protect and comfort overriding even his own embarrassment. Something is seriously wrong, because if that thing on his bed last month was really Sam...
"Sam, you have to explain this to me," Dean goes all commanding big brother because he is really worried now. "I'm sorry about the whole 'I can't tell because it might change the timeline thing,' but this is seriously fucked up, man, so if you don't tell me what the hell happened to you – if something happened that made my little brother turn into a fuckin' zombie..."
"I went to Hell," Old Sam says in a rush, his eyes wide and glittering like he's half-crazed and afraid if he doesn't just burst out and say the thing that needs saying he won't be able to say it at all. "I spent over a year-and-a-half in Hell. Well, my soul did. Now I'm back, but I'm a mess – I can't even remember half the things that happened, and I keep hallucinating – I thought you were a hallucination, at first – and that thing you saw that night? It was me, but without my soul. I don't remember that. Oh God, Dean, please tell me I didn't hurt you!"
"You didn't, okay? You didn't," Dean steps closer, reaches up, slips one hand behind Old Sam's head, the other around his waist, pulls him in and rests their foreheads together, just making contact. Old Sam lets out a long, shaky sigh, nods a little as he closes his eyes, leans into Dean's touch.
"Okay," he sighs, obviously relieved. "Okay."
They stand together like that for a solid minute, maybe more, breathing each other's air, letting the physical contact soothe Old Sam until he stops shaking, until he's calmer.
"So – Hell, huh?" Dean prompts finally, trying to keep his voice light, trying not to let on how terrified he is.
Old Sam hesitates, and Dean's half-afraid he won't say anything more, half-afraid he will. Old Sam nods finally, sighs, and Dean hurts because he can feel how much Sam is hurting, stays still so Sam can say what he needs to say if he needs to because it's Sam, for God's sake, and this horrible thing happened to his beautiful little brother and Dean is beyond appalled, beyond horrified, and he just wants to do what he can to fix it.
"Yeah," Old Sam breathes. "It sucked."
Dean lifts his head, pulling Old Sam's head back so he can look into his face. Old Sam avoids his eyes, but when Dean uses both hands to hold his face, just holding him warm and steady, studying the deep circles under his eyes, the lines on his forehead – the signs of aging and sleeplessness and ill-health that radiate from Old Sam's body like an infection – Old Sam finally lifts his eyes and looks back, tearing up immediately, closing them again and sucking in a shaky breath.
"I'm guessing I wasn't there," Dean says, clenching his teeth in an effort to fight back the anger he's feeling. "I'm guessing I didn't go with you to this Hell place."
Old Sam shakes his head and a great heaving sob wracks his giant body and that's it. That is just it, damn it.
"You were alone," Dean grits out, anger rising like a wave in his chest, making his head hot.
Old Sam lifts his eyes to Dean's, and the misery and suffering mirrored there is like nothing Dean's ever seen – it's worse than the look that doe gave him when he brought her down last fall and he only realized after she was dead that she had a faun, who would of course die without her – it's worse than that because this is Sam, this is the little brother he's supposed to protect and keep safe and somehow his older self really fucked up.
"Not alone," Old Sam says miserably. "It might have been bearable if I was alone."
And just like that, without Old Sam having to say another word, Dean understands.
He's not thinking clearly, not rational anymore, going on pure instinct now as he mutters, "Oh shit. Oh fuck," and pulls Old Sam against him, holding him like he's a four-year-old again, rocking him a little like he's that tiny baby again, pressing his lips against his cheek and his ear, murmuring to him and running his hands up and down his back, into his hair.
"Damn it, Sam, damn it, I'm sorry, buddy. I'm so sorry. Fuck. Oh shit, Sammy, I'm so sorry."
Dean's crying now, overwhelmed by the helplessness of the situation, his inability to go back and fix this terrible thing that happened to Sam, his terror of becoming a man who could have let such a thing happen to his beautiful baby brother, his determination to never let it happen to that loving, tender-hearted boy who is at this moment peeling potatoes and stoking the fire –
"Come on, let's get you back to the cabin, get you warmed up," he urges, because it's the only thing he can do for this damaged, broken version of his brother.
"I – I can't. I – Sammy's there. I don't think – "
"Sammy'll be just fine," Dean insists. "He'll be glad to see you."
Old Sam huffs out a breath, shaking his head dubiously. "I doubt that," he says, but he lets himself be led, lets Dean pull him along, then take the lead so he can follow.
Dean looks back over his shoulder a couple of times to make sure Old Sam is still there, and when he looks the third time and he's not Dean tries not to feel relieved but he can't help it.
There's no way he'll let that happen to Sammy. No way in Hell.
*
When John finally makes it back, he drops them off in a safe house outside Albany, New York so he can take off on his own again, something he's been doing so much of lately that it's more normal than not. Dean's skills as a petty thief have kept them fed and clothed at least half the time over the past two years, and this time is no exception, although getting caught was not part of the plan, and neither was getting sent to a boys home in the Catskills for two months. He doesn't bother explaining to John that the food money he left them wouldn't have lasted anyway, even if he hadn't lost it playing pool. John never leaves them enough. Dean always has to hustle or steal to feed Sammy, who is finally showing signs of growing and Dean is grateful for that, really he is, because he was starting to worry that Old Sam was just a figment of his imagination and not really the older version of his little brother after all.
By the time John picks him up from Sonny's, Sam's twelfth birthday has come and gone. Dean watches his little brother like a hawk, waiting for the signs of confusion and disorientation that he expects to see as soon as Sam starts traveling. But when two months go by and everything still seems fine, Dean begins to relax. He knows the day will come, and he's ready to explain it all to Sam when it does, really he is, but he doesn't mind putting it off as long as possible because why go asking for trouble? And Sammy time-traveling without him – or time-traveling to that older version of himself that he's learned not to trust – isn't something Dean's looking forward to.
Then Sammy travels for the first time, and all Hell breaks loose.
They're in another safe house – this time in Idaho, near a little town that has exactly one high school and two grocery stores – and Dean's shooting hoops in the driveway because the house has a driveway and a basketball hoop and it's so stupidly suburban-perfect he can't help himself.
Suddenly Sammy's there. He stumbles backwards, falls on his ass, and Dean grabs the ball and turns to look down at him, ball wedged between his arm and his hip.
"Kinda graceful there, Sammy," Dean comments, waiting for Sam to get a grip on himself, which he does after the initial shock wears off.
"Damn it, Dean," Sam glares up at his brother, then scrambles to his feet. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Dean lifts his eyebrows, tilts his head.
"Nothin' to tell," he shrugs. "Figured you'd find out when you found out. Figured it was easier that way."
"Easier for who?" Sam demands. "You? 'Cuz I gotta say, it might've helped just a tiny bit to know before I suddenly go hurtling through time, end up in some strange guy's bedroom in the middle of the night!"
Dean frowns. He wasn't expecting that. Old Sam hadn't exactly described his first time that way.
"He touch you?" Dean demands, suddenly furious.
Sam shakes his head. "No," he mutters, his frustration dissipating in the wake of Dean's righteous anger. "He made me hot chocolate and a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich."
"Of course he did," Dean nods, relieved. "He's me."
"He's really grumpy," Sam notes, shaking his head a little. "And old."
"So what's the future like, Sammy?" Dean turns away, going for nonchalant, lines up a shot and shoots, watches the ball swish through the hoop and bounce back to him before he turns to Sam again with a smirk.
Sam's shaking his head, grinning, all dimples and sunshine.
"He said you'd ask. He made me promise not to tell," he says.
"Huh," Dean grunts, purses his lips. "Did you see yourself? Big guy, about ten-feet tall, cries a lot?"
Sam shakes his head. "I wasn't there," he says. "I get the feeling I haven't been there for a long time. Old Dean seemed pretty lonely."
Dean shrugs. "That's probably because Old Sam spends so much time with us, when we were little."
"Yeah, about that – " Sam frowns. "How come you never told me about Old Sam?"
Dean shrugs again. "Nothin' to tell," he says again. "He was our friend. Looked out for us when Dad was gone. Saved our lives more than once."
"Yeah, I remember," Sam frowns, gives his head a little shake like he's clearing it, like he's rearranging his memories to accommodate his new knowledge. "I think I always knew, that's the weird thing. I just didn't think about it. He was more your friend than mine, so I just accepted him. It's been so long since he's been around, I almost forgot about him."
Dean cocks an eyebrow. "I haven't seen the old guy in almost six months," he confides with more than a little unease. "It's starting to bother me, to be honest. He wasn't in very good shape last time."
But Sam is much more concerned with learning how to control his new power, and he's a stubborn little bitch, so there's no telling him it's no use – Dean already knows his little brother can't control it. Sam goes straight to the library, desperate to dig up anything on time-travel, on Samael the Archangel of Death, on prophecies about time-travelers who can alter reality.
Dean tags along, sits in a corner on the floor with his Sony Walkman and his headphones, lets Zeppelin blast his mind off the whole thing. Because, seriously, the idea of his little brother flying around through time without him is making Dean need to kill something. He doesn't give a shit if Sam always ends up with some future version of his big brother. It makes Dean's head hurt because he can't do anything about it, and he hates that. Hates feeling out of control and useless. Stupid.
When the library closes and they finally walk home, Sam won't go to sleep, spends most of the night calling their dad's friends, asking endless questions about protectors and hunters and time-shifters until Dean wants to throw up.
"Come on, Sam, time for bed," Dean says for the fifth time since midnight. "You can't keep calling people in the middle of the night. Nobody will want to talk to you ever again."
"I need answers, Dean," Sam complains. "I have to figure out what's happening to me."
"What's happening to you is that you're exhausting yourself. And me," Dean chastens. "Tomorrow's a school day. Remember school? That place where you always get straight As? Where you're earning a ticket out of this shit-hole life and into something better?"
"I can't think about school right now," Sam shakes his head. "I've got to figure this out."
"Sam, if you don't go to bed right now, I swear I'm gonna spike your cocoa with sleeping pills from now on."
Sam shakes his head, makes a little dismissive noise.
"You wouldn't do that," he mutters.
"Try me," Dean counters sternly.
It isn't easy, not that night nor the nights that follow, for Dean to get Sam to let go of his new toy, but after about a month without getting anywhere, and not another time-traveling incident, Sam finally relents enough to focus on school again, after he makes Dean promise he'll get Sam right away if the older version of himself shows up because he has some questions for the dude.
Yeah, I'll bet you do, Dean thinks as he collapses on the couch after getting Sam registered for school in their new town a month later.
They've moved again, of course. John comes home like a shot when he hears the news about Sam time-traveling, swoops them up and deposits them in a two-bedroom rental house near Grants Pass, Oregon, then takes off again almost immediately. John's looking tired these days; he tells Dean he's on the trail of the thing that killed their mother and he doesn't want it coming anywhere near the boys, so he'll be gone longer than usual this time.
So Dean's in charge. It's the first time he's tried to pass as Sam's guardian, with a fake i.d. that says he's twenty-one and Sam's sole living relative, and it makes him feel old. Tired. He drags a heavy arm over his eyes and sinks further into the couch, telling himself he'll just rest for fifteen minutes, then get up to take care of business, get himself over to the local high school maybe.
The air does that familiar shimmering thing, rousing Dean from the edge of sleep. Old Sam's presence is a balm to Dean's tired nerves, and for several minutes Dean lies still with his eyes closed, just feeling his brother's grown up self in the room with him, and it's such a relief he almost drifts off to sleep, knowing Old Sam is watching out for him.
"Can feel you staring, Sam," he murmurs finally, keeping his eyes closed.
Old Sam huffs out a breath but says nothing.
"Where ya been?" Dean lets his eyes slide open, turns his head to face Old Sam. He's in the armchair, legs akimbo, elbows resting on the chair's arms, looking like he just fell out of the sky and landed there all sprawled out and oversized. His hair is longer than Dean's ever seen it, and he looks scruffy and unwashed, shirt buttoned wrong, eyes bleary and tired.
"You okay?" Dean's fully awake now, on alert because Sam's not well, There's something wrong. Again.
Old Sam shakes his head a little, his eyes glistening with a film of tears, and he smiles so sadly it just about breaks Dean's heart.
"I am now," Sam says, and his voice is so broken, sounding like he hasn't spoken for awhile,
"Sam," Dean sits up, staring, shaking his head. "You look like shit." He leans closer, gets a whiff. "You smell like shit too."
Sam huffs out a short laugh, dimples showing even through all the scruff, and that's the last straw.
"You sick or something, Sam?" Dean asks. "Something bad happen to you?" Again, he thinks but doesn't add because really. This has been an incredibly shitty year for Old Sam, at least from Dean's point of view, and that's just not okay.
Something in Dean's tone sets Old Sam off and suddenly he's crying, huge wet tears running down his face and big heaving sobs wracking his giant body, and Dean's reminded of that time two years ago when Old Sam had a breakdown like this right in front of him, and it was because –
"Jesus, Sam, am I dead again?" Dean guesses wildly.
"Oh God!" Old Sam sobs, trying to wipe his face with his hands, only succeeding in making a bigger mess of his face. "I don't know, Dean! You're just – you're gone! And I don't know where you are – " Old Sam buries his face in his hands and sobs, long, wrenching, body-shaking sobs that go on and on and Dean is so done with this shit.
"Fuck," Dean mutters as he gets up and crosses the room, lays a hand on Old Sam's head, gently petting the greasy strands. "I'm right here, Sam. Right here, okay? I'm okay." Dean knows that's not entirely accurate from Old Sam's point of view, that Old Sam's missing the Dean from his time who apparently keeps leaving inexplicably, which just makes no sense. There is nothing Dean can imagine that would ever make him leave Sam, not willingly.
Then he remembers what Old Sam told him two years ago. About the Hell hounds.
Okay, so not willingly.
Old Sam reacts to Dean's touch like a starving man, reaching up to wrap his long arms around Dean's body, pulling him in so he's caught between Old Sam's legs, almost sitting on his lap. It's an awkward angle, and when Old Sam buries his face against Dean's stomach Dean's aware again of how much bigger Old Sam is, how weird and even a little ridiculous it is to have this giant man trying to cuddle against him like he's a four-year-old boy.
"Come on, Sam, let's get you cleaned up," Dean pats Old Sam's shoulder, his greasy head, doing his best to comfort and quiet him while fighting with his downstairs brain, which is almost painfully on board with being wrapped in Old Sam's arms this way. "I'll make you some soup. Come on."
Old Sam lets himself be led down the hall to the bathroom, where Dean leaves him with a clean towel.
"I'll be right here," he promises when Old Sam seems momentarily panicked at the idea of Dean leaving him alone. "Not going anywhere, okay?"
He finds his largest, baggiest pair of sweatpants and one of Dad's old tee-shirts, lays them on the chair outside the bathroom door where he can already hear the shower running.
Good.
Dean's in the kitchen, finishing the breakfast dishes and stirring the soup, when Old Sam pads in, looking predictably ridiculous in Dean's clothes, tee-shirt stretched tight over his chest and shoulders, sweatpants hugging his ass and thighs, exposing his hairy shins and bare feet. He's washed and scrubbed and his hair is wet and he's heart-breakingly gorgeous and it makes Dean gasp before he can stop himself.
"Hey," Dean tears his eyes away, turns back to the stove, tries not to shiver with anticipation as Old Sam crosses the room, moves up behind him, slips his arms around Dean and presses his face into Dean's neck.
Dean lets out a long sigh, leans back against his huge brother, melts into him a little. He's so horny it almost hurts to be touched like this, and it's hard to think with Old Sam's lips on his skin, just under his ear where he's so sensitive –
He puts the pan down, turns in Old Sam's arms, slips his arms around the big body and tips his face up to be kissed. Old Sam holds his head in one of his giant paws, brushes his fingers along Dean's cheek with the other hand, the gesture both reverent and deeply erotic, and Dean parts his lips, his eyes fall closed, and his entire body trembles with anticipation.
And still Old Sam doesn't kiss him.
"Where's Sam?" he asks softly.
"At school," Dean answers, opening his eyes to look up at Old Sam, makes sure he's conveying his meaning loud and clear. "For hours."
Old Sam nods shortly and his lips part as his eyes drop to Dean's mouth.
"So help me God, Sam, if you tell me I'm young and beautiful I may have to go all Revenge of the Nerds on your ass," Dean threatens.
Old Sam grins, eyes sparkling, dimples and teeth evident, and Dean takes a moment to feel proud of the fact that he always made Sam brush his teeth and now look how strong and white they are!
"Is that a promise?" Dean's brother asks, and Dean rolls his eyes.
"Shut up and kiss me," he orders, and Old Sam does.
Finally. Fuckin' finally, because it's been almost eight months since that time in the woods and Dean is so done waiting for this.
Old Sam tastes like coffee and toothpaste and blood, like he's been chewing on the inside of his mouth recently. His lips are soft and warm and he opens willingly enough for Dean's tongue, deepens the kiss with only the barest resistance, the tiniest of moans, the sound going straight to Dean's dick. He's been hard for a while, aching really, but now he feels Old Sam's hard length pressed against his stomach and he wants it with an intensity he can barely control.
But after last time he doesn't want to scare the big guy off, so he takes his time kissing Old Sam into submission first, stroking up his back and shoulders, re-learning the muscles there, feeling them move beneath his hands before he pushes the edge of the tee-shirt up, finds Old Sam's warm, smooth skin. Old Sam moans as Dean touches him, runs his hands under the tee-shirt and along the waist-band of the ridiculously tight sweatpants. Old Sam's tongue is greedier, more demanding, and he's grinding his hips against Dean now, so Dean feels bold enough to slip his hands down over Old Sam's ass and damn, his ass is perfect. Two tight, rounded melons that fit into Dean's hands like they were meant to be there.
Old Sam growls low in his throat, still holding Dean's head with one hand, moving the other down Dean's back, fingers spread so that when he cups Dean's ass he's shoving his long middle finger into Dean's crack, rubbing through his jeans as he grinds his hips against Dean's. Dean gasps as Old Sam's hand clutches his ass, spreading his ass-cheeks and hauling him up against Old Sam's body so that all Dean can do is spread his legs and wrap them around Old Sam's waist. From this angle he's got a little more leverage, a little more height, so he takes Old Sam's face in his hands and kisses into him, sucking and biting and plunging his tongue as Old Sam grinds and moans and gasps. Dean runs his hand into Old Sam's hair, grabbing a handful and yanking sharply as he bites Old Sam's lip and the big guy shudders, cries out against his mouth. Dean feels Old Sam's body tense up as his orgasm hits him, and Dean deliberately pulls back a little so he can see the look on Old Sam's face as he comes, mouth soft and glistening with spit and a drop of blood where Dean bit him, eyes at half-mast and unseeing, cheeks flushed dusky pink.
It's the most beautiful thing Dean's ever seen, and Old Sam has shown him a lot of beautiful over the years.
"Huh," Old Sam blinks finally, focuses on Dean, sees something in his face that makes Old Sam blush even more and lower his eyes, shifting backwards to let Dean slide to the floor.
"Sorry," he murmurs. "It's been awhile."
"Yeah, I get that," Dean smiles reassuringly as Old Sam takes another step back, licking the blood off his lip – which is so incredibly sexy it's making Dean's legs go all weak and wobbly, makes his dick leak. He's still hard and aching and fighting the urge to palm himself and jerk off right here in front of Old Sam, or beg him for a blow job, which he's pretty sure he could get. He's not exactly sure why he didn't let himself come, except that he's taking care of Old Sam's needs first.
"Hey, why don't you – go clean yourself up," Dean offers, trying to keep his voice steady. "Your clothes are in the washer; they can probably go in the dryer now. I'll finish the soup. Get you fed next."
Taking care of one need at a time.
"Okay," Old Sam agrees, and Dean is struck again by how easily this older version of his brother falls into his role as the younger brother, the child Dean raised. It's Old Sam's comfort zone, his happy place, being Dean's little brother, and somehow that makes Dean so sad he has to stop thinking about it.
This time when Old Sam returns from the bathroom he's got the towel wrapped around his waist because his clothes are still damp and Dean's literally got nothing else that could possibly fit him.
Old Sam sitting at the kitchen table, eating chicken noodle soup in a tight tee-shirt and towel is a memory Dean swears he will cherish for-fucking-ever. Dean sits at the table and watches until Old Sam finishes every drop, just like he always does, making sure the kid gets enough to eat, even though the kid has obviously been a full-grown man for several years now.
When he's done Dean lays his hand over Old Sam's, squeezes reassuringly.
"You alright with this, Sam?" he asks, needing to hear Old Sam say it. "Cuz last time I saw you, you'd been through something pretty bad, and you weren't exactly itchin' to dance."
Old Sam frowns, then shakes his head. "Oh my God, Dean," he huffs out a breath in apparent disbelief. "You're the virgin, and you're asking me?"
Dean feels his cheeks grow hot, lowers his eyes but doesn't let Old Sam's hand go.
"Yeah," he admits, clearing his throat. "Yeah, I guess I am."
Old Sam shakes his head again. "What happened to me," he says, his voice low. "What I went through – I don't think about it, okay? It's what you do. You've been in Hell, I've been in Hell, we just don't think about it. That's how we deal. It's the only way we keep going."
Dean stares, searching Old Sam's face for evidence of the horror he's describing, of suffering so intense and prolonged it couldn't possibly be real, couldn't possibly leave this beautiful man without a visible scar, some visual evidence of the torture he's endured.
Suddenly all Dean wants to do is go to bed. Take this huge, suffering brother-man with him. Stay there.
In the bedroom Old Sam lets Dean undress him, remove the towel and tee-shirt and lay him out on the bed, then stands over him as he gets undressed, leaves his clothes folded neatly on the armchair before he climbs into bed, pulls the covers up over both their bodies, lets Old Sam's heat wash over him like the wave of affection and comfort and home that it is.
They lie still and gaze at each other for awhile, on their sides, barely touching, just observing, just basking in the power of being together that is still so new to Dean but also feels completely comfortable, like it's always been. Dean touches the tattoo on Old Sam's chest, looks up into Old Sam's eyes with a questioning gaze, but Old Sam lowers his eyes, flushing a little.
"Never mind," he says softly. "Turns out it doesn't really work that well anyway."
He sounds so defeated, so resigned to the misery of his life, and it just makes Dean's chest hurt in a kind of unconscious sympathy.
"I don't know if I can do this, Sam," Dean hears himself say, although he's not sure what made him say it; he's not even sure what he means until Old Sam smiles a little, touches his cheek.
"Do what, Dean?" he prompts.
"I'm not sure I can let my little brother go into that future," Dean says. "Where you come from."
Old Sam traces Dean's cheek with the tips of his fingers.
"I'm afraid you don't have much choice," he comments. "It's already happened."
"It fuckin' sucks, is what it does," Dean says.
"Yeah, it does," Old Sam agrees. "But it could be worse."
"How?" Dean is genuinely curious, because that just doesn't make sense. "How could it possibly be worse?"
"Well, most of the time, we're together," Old Sam says. "When you're gone, it's worse. Trust me."
"Like right now?" Dean says. "In your time, I'm gone. You're alone. What the hell kind of future is that? You go to Hell, I go to Hell, everybody gets violated and tortured, then we disappear on each other for what – months at a time?"
"Years," Old Sam mutters miserably. "Sometimes it's years."
"Nope," Dean says firmly. "Not letting Sammy go. That's final."
Old Sam slides the pad of his thumb along Dean's lower lip, takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly, eyes watching his own fingers as he touches and caresses Dean's face. His fingers slide down Dean's neck, touch the leather cord and the little pendant hanging there.
"You kept this," Old Sam murmurs dreamily, like he's talking to someone else, like he's forgotten he's in the past.
"Course I did," Dean frowns. "Always. I never take it off. You know that."
A single tear slides down Old Sam's cheek, making his lashes wet, and he keeps his eyes down, fingering the little brass talisman like it's the key to the universe, like it's the answer to everything.
"I thought you were supposed to be the one that would save us all," Dean says when it's clear Old Sam isn't going to say anything.
Old Sam raises his eyes to Dean's, frowns a little, like he doesn't get Dean's meaning.
"You know, the time-traveler who fixes everything," Dean prompts, fighting down the doubt at the edges of his consciousness. "The prophecy."
Old Sam shakes his head, sad and weary and suddenly looking very old.
"Pretty sure that's just a myth," he says softly, letting the pendant drop back onto Dean's chest, pulling his hand away.
"What are you talking about?" Dean frowns, confused now. "That was supposed to be the whole deal. You were the Great New Hope or something."
Old Sam is shaking his head. "No, Dean, it's not me."
"What do you mean, it's not you?" Dean demands. "It's what Dad's fighting for. Uncle Bobby too. It's why they do what they do."
"Dean, I don't know what they told you, but I am not any kind of savior," Old Sam shakes his head. "Believe me. It's not me. Dad and Bobby did – they do what they do because it's their jobs, not because of me."
Dean stares silently for a moment, trying to remember that night at Bobby's house when Dad explained all this to him, when he felt so sure he understood. When he felt he was part of something important, something that made all their suffering and sacrifice – even Mom's death – meaningful.
"So they got it wrong?" Dean breathes. "It's all for nothing after all?"
Old Sam leans in then, kisses him, slips his hand down Dean's body and pulls him close, so their bodies are flush together from shoulder to hip. The warmth and softness of Sam's skin, the hardness of his muscles and bones floods Dean's senses, makes everything else fade as his downstairs brain goes instantly on-line.
"Not nothing," Old Sam murmurs against his mouth. "Not nothing."
Old Sam's love-making is careful, reverential; he cherishes Dean's body as if he's never had it before, as if he'll never have it again. Whenever Dean tries to increase the pace, get a little wilder the way he suspects Sam likes it, Sam slows him down again, shushes him, soothes the bite marks on his skin with his lips and tongue. He takes his time licking and sucking, then finally opening Dean's body, sensitizing every inch of his skin and giving him the best blow job of his young life. When Old Sam lubes himself up and finally fucks into Dean, first with his fingers, then with his dick, he goes slow and careful, giving Dean what he never knew he needed. It's a revelation to Dean, letting Old Sam take control, so that Dean can relinquish all responsibility, so that Dean can transfer his heavy load to his little brother's broad shoulders and just let it all go. When his orgasm surges through him he's on his back, gazing up through tear-filled eyes as Old Sam thrusts against his prostate, watching Dean's face and going rigid only a moment after Dean, thrusting shallowly as he lowers his forehead to Dean's, kissing his swollen lips as he moans through his aftershocks.
Afterwards, Dean's too fucked out to move, so Old Sam gets up to clean them off, spreads a clean sheet beneath him, then spoons in behind him, kissing the back of his neck until he drifts off to sleep, warm and content and more sore than he cares to think about.
Old Sam visits regularly for awhile, and somehow his timing is nearly perfect for Dean to pull him into bed, and for several months Dean experiences a state of bliss that can only result from being both sexually and emotionally fulfilled, a state of reality that gave rise to the idea of honeymoon, since it's pretty sticky sometimes, although, at least in Dean's case, it has nothing to do with the moon, since Old Sam's visits happen during daylight, while Sammy's in school.
"Purgatory," Old Sam explains when he reveals that Old Dean has finally returned again in his time.
Dean marvels at how linear Old Sam's visits have been lately, although sometimes he arrives at an earlier point in the month than the last time, so this particular visit happens before one in which Dean is able to reveal to Old Sam that his older self is, in fact, in Purgatory this time.
"Not Hell," Dean clarifies. "It's not nearly as bad as Hell. Less raping and torturing, if you can keep from getting caught, which of course I can."
Old Sam's eyes glisten with tears, but his relief is palpable, and their love-making is a little more heated, a little more intense than usual because Old Sam knows he's getting his brother back soon – his older brother – which means his time in the past, with this younger Dean, is coming to an end. Dean tries not to think about how that means he'll be losing Old Sam soon, losing him to that older version of himself. And Dean tries to be happy for the guy when a month goes by and he hasn't shown up. Old Dean getting back from Purgatory is a good thing, he reasons. Something to look forward to.
Yeah, right.
**/**
Dean's seventeenth birthday has come and gone, and he's technically supposed to be a junior in high school, but he's fallen so far behind so many times that he doesn't try to go back, just rides the year out until John comes to pick them up again, depositing them for the summer and most of the next school year at a farm outside Hannibal, Missouri.
The farmhouse is another safe house, used by hunters and protectors in the past so it's well-warded, the fields around it planted with vervain and other herbs used to repel the supernatural. John gives Dean the Impala as an early birthday present, buys himself a monster truck with winnings from a particularly lucky hand of poker in Carver City.
"You know as much as I do about caring for this thing," he tells Dean as he hands him the keys. "She's yours now. Be good to her."
Dean nods solemnly because the fact that this car is now his represents an act of faith and trust that he's never quite sure he's earned from his dad, especially after the accident with the Mustang. But he's more than grateful that he's got wheels, especially since he and Sammy are stranded out here otherwise and that hasn't been so fun in the past. There's a school bus that passes right by the farm, but Dean takes Sammy to school and picks him up every day anyway. It's worth it to see the looks on the other kids' faces, and Dean gets the chance to wink at a couple of high school girls in the process. He even takes one or two of them out, although it makes Sammy so jealous and hormonal he gives up after the first few dates, falls back on his own hand-jobs for relief because it just isn't worth upsetting Sam like it does.
Sam travels off and on, although Dean only knows for sure if he's in the room when it happens. Sam explains that time moves differently in the future, so sometimes when he spends an hour or two with Old Dean in some distant future, when he comes back only a minute or two will have passed. It's a little disorienting, that's all, otherwise it's no big deal, or so he says when Dean glares, furious that he can't stop it from happening. Dean officially hates time travel, at least when it's his little brother doing it.
Old Sam, on the other hand, can just get his sorry ass back through time anytime now. Dean misses Old Sam more than he's willing to admit, even to himself. He doesn't bother telling Sammy what Old Sam told him about not being the special time-traveling superhero that saves the world after all. Dean feels a little guilty for not telling him, but Sammy seems so excited about the whole thing right now, and Dean knows how sad he gets later so he just wants him to have his happiness as long as he can. If Sammy wants to believe he's going to save the world someday, who is Dean to take that belief away from him? Besides, at least from Dean's point of view, there isn't anyone else who could do it, if it's even possible at all. He believes in Sam, always has, so who's to say his Sam, this Sam, isn't the one who finally saves everyone in the end?
That's enough for Dean.
Which is why, when the end finally comes, it rocks Dean to the core.
It's late January, just before Dean's eighteenth birthday, and Sammy's at school. It's the middle of a cold, cloud-covered winter day, when the ground is frozen and the sparse trees look like long-fingered skeletal claws against the sky.
Dean's in the house baking bread, filling the house with a smell he vaguely remembers from his earliest childhood, giving himself yet another domestic skill he doesn't really care if John teases him for. John doesn't understand how good smells are everything, how important food is when you've been food-poor most of your life. John's father may have left when he was little, but after his mother remarried the mechanic from Lawrence, Kansas, Dean imagines John's life was fairly stable, comfortable even. John grew up in one house, in one town, where everyone knew him and where he felt secure and cared about by more people than Dean can count. So John can't ever understand, not really, what it's been like for Dean.
Not that it matters. As long as Dean has Sam – and as far as he can tell, he always will – he doesn't really need anything else.
"Dean."
Dean turns, heart leaping because he'd know that voice anywhere. Old Sam is in the kitchen doorway, his hair a disheveled mess, his face pale and drawn, his clothes bedraggled and unkempt. His right arm is bandaged and held in place by an elaborate black sling which is belted to his torso and across his opposite shoulder. It looks awkward and uncomfortable, but it's the look on his face that propels Dean forward, grabbing Sam's good shoulder and his waist to pull him in for a hug.
"What happened this time, Sam?" Dean demands as he releases him a little, keeping contact because he can't not touch Old Sam, not when he's so obviously in need. Again.
"I can't do this anymore," Old Sam declares, his face a mask of grief and horror, worse than anything since that time he came back after Hell. "I can't keep doing this, Dean."
"Sure you can, Sammy," Dean rubs his brother's shoulder. "It's not that bad, remember? Cuz you've got me, right? You've always got me."
"No," Old Sam shakes his head. His eyes are wild, and he looks a little unhinged. "No, you're not there again, Dean. You – Oh God, I just can't do this."
"Hey, hey, come on, Sam, come on now," Dean turns to the kitchen table, still keeping his hand on Old Sam's shoulder, pulls out a chair for him and sits him down, pulling one for himself opposite. "Now listen to me, Sam. You're gonna get through this, whatever it is. Just like you always have. Okay? I promise. It's gonna be okay."
"No, no – fuck, no, Dean, you don't understand," Old Sam's breathing is ragged, he's sweating and his eyes are tearing up. Old Sam closes his eyes for a minute, takes a deep, shuddering breath, tips his chin down to his chest and lets it out. "You died, Dean. You died right in front of me again. Horribly. Bloody."
Fuck.
"Okay," Dean clears his throat, focuses on Sam so he doesn't have to feel the ice water flooding his veins. "Okay, Sam. But I'll be back. I always come back. You can't get rid of me that easy, you know that."
He doesn't get this dying and coming back business. At all. But he knows the drill, knows that somehow, however it happens, he and Sam always end up together again.
"No, no, not this time," Old Sam shakes his head, looking up, straight into Dean's eyes. "You turned into a demon."
Okay, that's a new one.
"Huh," Dean nods, going for rational in the face of the crazy he's hearing. "Okay, well then. Guess I made one too many trips to Hell, huh?"
Old Sam's eyes widen. "It's not funny, Dean!" he protests. "It's a fuckin' disaster! You're alive again, sure, but you're some kind of monster and I can't fix you! Oh God, I am so done with this shit, I can't even tell you."
"Listen to me, Sam," Dean leans forward, puts his hands on Sam's knees to get his full attention. He knows he's still just a kid, just a past self to Old Sam, but he's still the big brother. He can still get Sam to do what he needs him to do.
"We're gonna figure this out, okay? Just like we always have. It's always crazy with us, I see that now, and it just gets crazier. But I know for a fact we are there in the future – your future. Remember? Because my little thirteen-year-old brother is visiting a very old version of myself in that future, and I've seen you old, Sam. Like white-hair-and-wrinkles old. So we survive, okay? Some way, somehow, we survive."
Old Sam is shaking his head, has been since Dean started his little pep talk, and now he gets up, moves in long-legged strides toward the back door, muttering "no no no" under his breath.
"No, Dean, not this time," he says when he's got his hand on the doorknob, turns and looks back at his brother. "This time, I'm gonna change it."
He turns and is out the door before Dean has time to react, before he can interpret the determined set to Old Sam's jaw, the wild-eyed obsession driving him, making him blind and deaf even to Dean.
He's just like Dad.
The thought suddenly hits Dean, terrifies him, gets him up onto his feet and out the door after his brother before he even realizes what he's doing. Outside, the cold hits him like a wall, solid and unyielding. The wind is frigid, even if it's not very strong, and it pierces through Dean's shirts and jeans like they aren't even there. He sucks in a breath, curses himself for not grabbing a coat, then stares around wildly, looking for Old Sam.
It's only a second or two before he sees him, standing in the middle of the empty field behind the house, good arm outstretched, staring up at the sky. It takes Dean a minute to realize he's yelling something; the wind is increasing, so at first it carries the sound away from him, and all Dean can see is Old Sam's mouth moving. That, and the fact that there's a silver knife in his hand. A long one, clutched in his left hand because his right one is immobile.
"Come on, you son of a bitch! Come and get me! Come on!" The wind has shifted, and now Dean can hear Old Sam's voice, can hear the challenge and desperation in his tone.
"Sam!" Dean bellows, starting across the windy field toward his brother, thinking only about getting Old Sam back into the house, knocking some sense into him and warming him up with soup or whiskey or sex. Maybe all of the above.
That's when the air is suddenly filled with the sound of flapping wings, and out of the corner of his eye Dean catches sight of something huge and black and feathery which at first he assumes is a crow, but when he turns to look at it full on it's no longer there. The sound of beating wings gets louder, and then something huge and dark swoops down right over Dean's head. He has only a moment to look up, to grab the gun from the back of his jeans before the thing is right on top of him, moving fast toward Old Sam. There's a smell like decay and dust, and darkness falls all around him, as if night had come on a fluttering mass of feathers and death. Dean has an impression of millions of glittering eyes like stars winking at him from a blanket of rippling blackness. He fires his gun blindly, with no real target, but he must've hit something because he hears a shriek, then he's hit by something hard and he's on the ground with the wind knocked out of him and his consciousness flickering against a throbbing pain in his head.
"Dean!"
He can hear Old Sam bellowing at him, moving closer, but he's barely conscious, something dripping into one eye and the other one swelling shut –
Then Old Sam's yells turn to screams of pain.
"No!"
Dean feels Old Sam's agony like it's part of him, like his own insides are being ripped out, except worse because he can still move, he can still do something to stop the thing that's hurting Old Sam if he can just stay conscious, focus, get his body to move.
Afterwards, when Dean thinks back on those moments, he knows it was only a few minutes. But at the time it feels like an eternity. It feels like it takes him forever to get to his feet, to stagger towards Old Sam and the huge black winged thing hovering over him, ripping at him with teeth and claws and a beak, its million eyes opening and closing amongst its constantly rippling coat of feathers. It sees Dean approaching, starts to spread its massive wings, and Dean has the impression that it means to pick up Old Sam's body in its gigantic talons and carry him off, or what's left of Old Sam after it's done shredding his chest.
"You will die like this one day, Dean Winchester," a thin, raspy voice whispers deep inside his head. "Your brother will watch it happen. And now you know how your brother will die."
Dean's head throbs, the whispery voice inside it making all his senses scream in protest, resist the psychic invasion with every fiber of his being. He can feel it, like it's a physical force inside him, like it's trying to grab his insides and pull them out through his nose.
"No!" he screams, launching himself full-force at the creature, knowing it's a useless gesture, that he's lost his gun and he's bleeding and half-conscious, knowing Old Sam is dying because he can't hear him screaming anymore, just sees the little red pieces of Old Sam in the creature's beak and claws. Dean stumbles, falls to his knees, sobbing, crawling in the dirt now because he can't seem to make his legs work.
Then he sees it. Old Sam's long silver knife is right there, where he must've dropped it when the creature – Samael the Archangel of Death, Dean knows it now, heard the thing whisper its name in his brain – attacked. Dean reaches for the knife, clutches it in both hands, starts to rise to his feet, meaning to make one last running leap. It's only about ten feet, and he should be able to land a blow or two before he's flung aside again.
"Leave my brother alone, you son of a bitch!"
It's a battle cry he's heard before, maybe something his future self has said, maybe something he's heard in a movie or a TV show or just in his own head. But as he's throwing himself forward, thrusting the knife home into one of the creatures eyes and twisting it with every ounce of strength he has, he thinks he feels something tearing, some deep, vibrating weight that's pushing back at first but then just splits open, letting his knife pierce deep – wrenching some primal piece of the universe right out of its fucking comfortable little hole.
Dean can hear the thing shrieking, can feel it moving under him, trying to shake him loose, twisting and turning its hideous body away, maybe landing blows but Dean can't feel them because he's focusing only on putting all his weight into the blade, pinning the creature in place and twisting. He hears it rustle and scream, knows without lifting his head that it's dying. Its movements are getting weaker. The screaming is all in his head now, and then it's silent.
For a solid minute that feels more like an hour, Dean lies still, not daring to let up on his hold, afraid that if he does the thing will leap to life again, go back to its gory work on Old Sam. Then Dean hears the roar of a truck and he lifts his head, momentarily panicked because it's Dad's truck and no way can he let this thing go after Dad too.
He's still so out of it – barely conscious really – that he doesn't even register at first that he's alone. Old Sam and the monster are gone. Vanished. He struggles to his feet, looks around with his one good eye. He's still clutching the silver blade, red blood dripping from it, and there's so much blood on the ground it looks like a fucking army bled out right here, and it's all in one gigantic puddle because the ground is so frozen it can't absorb the stuff.
"Dean!"
John Winchester is stalking toward him across the field, sawed-off in his hands, Sammy at his heels.
"What happened here?" John demands as soon as he's close enough to see the blood, to see that Dean is covered in it, to see that he's still holding a seriously dangerous-looking mini-sword in his hand. "Put the blade down, son. Tell me what happened."
Dean drops the blade, understanding instinctively that John thinks he killed something here and might still be in the killing mood and needs to disarm –
"I think I killed it, Dad," he says, his voice raspy and broken from crying.
Crying? He's been crying, he realizes. Because of Old Sam. Because of what the creature was doing to his brother.
"What did you do, Dean?" John asks, his voice low and steady, soothing.
He still thinks I did something bad, Dean realizes.
He shakes his head. "No, Dad, I killed that thing. The thing that killed Mom. It attacked Sam and I – I just – "
"What are you talking about?" John raises his voice, clearly getting a little freaked out. "Sam's right here. He's fine. What do you mean you killed the thing that killed your mom? What thing?"
Dean swallows, forcing himself to speak calmly, even though he knows he looks like a crazy man with blood all over him and a gash above his eye and he's a little wobbly because he's really hurting all over and it's fuckin' freezing out here –
"Samael, the Archangel of Death," Dean clarifies. "I've seen it before, Dad. I know what it looks like."
"It was here?" John's voice is verging on hysteria now.
"Yeah," Dean nods. "It was after Sam. Old Sam. From-the-future Sam. He – " Dean shakes his head, trying to clear it. "He – " Dean glances at Sam, sees Sam's wide, adoring eyes just staring at him, and he smiles, knowing how ghoulish he must look doing it.
Sam smiles back, blushing a little.
"Old Sam drew it out," Dean says, looking at Sam as he says it, letting his brother anchor him, keep him steady. "He was totally kick-ass brave. Just stood there in the middle of the field and called it. Yelled at it to come and get him."
"No way," Sam says under his breath, rapt, eyes shining, like Dean's telling one of his bedtime stories.
"Oh yeah," Dean nods. "Just called it down so we could fight it. We killed it together," he assures Sam. "I couldn't have done it without him."
John doesn't believe him. He's been tracking this thing for years, tracked it this way just this morning – feared it was coming after his kids, so he high-tailed it here, only to find a field of blood and his oldest son covered in the red stuff – but no body, only Dean's word for it that the thing's dead. John spends the afternoon searching the field, comes up with a single black feather and a couple of pieces of blood-soaked flannel, not from Dean's shirt.
Sam takes Dean inside, helps clean him up, cleans and dresses his wounds, feeds him soup and fresh-baked bread, tries to get him to lie down, get some rest.
"Sammy, don't leave," Dean begs after Sam's finally got him in bed, pain pills starting to take effect so he's drowsy, warm – finally, finally warm again – and it feels so good to have Sam's small hands on him.
Sam looks a little worried, unsure, but he complies easily, slipping fully-clothed into bed next to his brother. Dean wraps an arm around Sam's shoulders and pulls him close, tangles their legs together as Sam lays his head on Dean's chest, snuggles in under Dean's chin. Dean buries his nose in Sam's soft hair and breathes deep, banishing the horror of watching his older brother being torn apart as best he can, letting his little brother's smell – warm and alive and sweaty and real – overwhelm every other sense-memory.
Later, Dean wakes up to the sound of voices in the next room, Sammy gone from the bed. He can hear John's deep voice, talking to someone on the phone, followed by Sam's higher, boyish voice giving short answers. Dean pulls himself out of bed, stumbles to the door, pulling on a pair of jeans and grabbing a flannel shirt because it's cold, cold, cold, and the heat isn't up high enough to take the chill out of Dean's bones today.
It's what he expects when he opens the door. John's on the phone, talking to Caleb, and Sam's on their newly-acquired laptop, bought with money Dean won hustling pool over the summer. Sam's sending e-mails and checking message boards and listservs for signs of supernatural activity.
Sam sees his brother first and his face softens.
"Hey Dean," he calls. "You won't believe this."
John looks up, says his goodbyes to Caleb, immediately dials another number.
Dean crosses the room, pulling his flannel on, hugging himself as he looks over Sam's shoulder at the computer screen.
"We need to get down to the library, search some databases," Sam says. "This is amazing."
"What?" Dean demands, squinting at the words on the screen. Just a lot of messages, posted one after the other.
"This is one of the most active boards," Sam explains. "It's where hunters discuss their latest cases, reach out to other hunters for advice, that kind of thing. It's usually hopping. Right now? And for the past six hours or so? Nothing. Nobody has anything. It's like – "
Sam glances up at Dean, gets all flustered for a minute because Dean's right there leaning over his shoulder. Dean notices, pulls back right away. It's instinct, he thinks. Don't make Sammy uncomfortable. He does it so automatically he only now realizes he's been doing it for awhile.
"So it's like everybody's on vacation?" Dean suggests, and Sammy shakes his head.
"No, it's like there's no supernatural activity," Sam says, focusing again with a slight flush to his cheeks. "It's like everything's disappeared."
"We don't know that for sure," John booms out, putting the phone down. He frowns at Dean. "I still have a few more calls to make. Nothing's definite yet." He heads into the kitchen and the brothers listen as he opens the refrigerator, then pops open a beer.
"I think you did it, Dean," Sam whispers. "I think you stopped it all, when you killed that thing. It was you, after all."
Dean stares, shakes his head. "No way, Sam," he protests. "You were the one. It was always gonna be you."
"Maybe it had to be both of us," Sam suggests. "My time-traveling, your psychic thing."
Dean stares, stunned. "My what? I don't have a – whatever thing. What are you talking about?"
"Old Dean explained it to me. He said Old Sam figured it out. He said the time-traveling thing always complemented a power in a sibling or soul-mate. Since we're – we're both, it's doubly powerful in us. That's why when I travel, I always go to you. You do that. You bring me to you. Like – like an anchor. Without you, I'd go spinning off through time, end up in the middle of the interstate getting run over by a mac truck or something. Or in space."
"But I – I don't even think about it," Dean's shaking his head. "You just show up. It's not like it's something I can control."
Sam nods. "Like my time-traveling," he agrees. "It just happens."
"What's the use of having a magical power you can't control?" Dean feels panic rising in his chest, not liking what he's hearing one bit, damn it.
"Maybe so you can shift reality and banish everything supernatural from the entire universe?" Sam suggests, raising his eyebrows, pursing his lips, and suddenly looking so much like his older self it makes Dean a little queasy.
"And you think – you think our killing that thing did that?" he says slowly. "That's what you think?"
"That's what it looks like," Sam shrugs. "That's sure what it looks like."
Dean sinks into the armchair next to the computer table, sucks in a deep breath.
"Oh, and happy birthday," Sam says, almost as an afterthought, which is when Dean realizes he slept the night through and it's actually morning of the day following the Day Everything Changed, as he would later refer to it in his mind. It's January 24th. Dean's eighteenth birthday.
Epilogue:
In the days and weeks and months that follow, life goes on fairly normally. John doesn't believe Sam's theory at first, so he keeps them moving, follows them around in his monster truck while they drive the car. Being alone in the Impala with Sam is a new experience for Dean, and one that he begins to get used to pretty quickly. They can talk about stuff, or not, listen to the music Dean wants to hear, or not. John still directs their general movements, but they can choose the diners they stop at, the motels where they crash for the night.
On Sam's fourteenth birthday Dean takes him out for pie and ice cream, makes the waitress put a candle in the pie for him, then takes him back to the motel room and lays one on him.
"Figured you've been thinking about it," Dean explains as he pulls away, leaving Sam wide-eyed and slick-lipped. "Didn't want you to think it's all just you."
Sam reaches for Dean, manages to push him back against the door so he can kiss him again, sloppy and inexperienced and unbearably sweet, and Dean lets him because he's the big brother and it's his job to take care of Sam.
After a year without finding a single incident of supernatural activity, John finally – cautiously – admits that Sam might be right. He leaves them in a rental house in Pontiac, Illinois and takes off. They find out later he's remarried and had another family, a young son named Adam and a secret "normal" life where he settles down once he's fairly convinced nothing will come after them.
Dean is more hurt than he will admit, the idea that their dad found something normal he could escape to while he was leaving them in shitty motel rooms without enough food or money. All the wilderness training and hunting exercises, everything Dean went through to become a hunter, to follow in his dad's footsteps, all feels like a lie suddenly. John's second family never knew what he did, never knew about his first family, gets to have him full-time once it's all over, once John's convinced there's no more work to be done. And Dean gets it, that's the sick thing. Even though it's unfair as all hell, he gets it. John grew up normal, had this crazy traumatic event rip his world wide open, suddenly has to care for and protect two small children on his own, does his best but really, who wouldn't want to find normal again if they could? Who wouldn't want to leave all the crazy behind? And Sam and Dean are not normal, of that they're both pretty well convinced. Like their mother, they're a kind of aberration, a freak of nature that any sane person would avoid like the plague. So Dean doesn't blame John. Not really. For Dean, there was never a choice. He was always going to be in this crazy life, apparently; there just wasn't any other way for him.
Sam doesn't time-travel again. They both decide it's because he doesn't need to, that the magic that allowed him to do it in the first place just isn't in this universe anymore. It's such a huge relief to Dean he can hardly stand it. Sam won't leave him. At least, not that way.
For awhile, Dean thinks maybe Sam can get out. Sam's training has been more theoretical, less hands-on. He hasn't had the early trauma, or the brutality and intensity of Dean's hunting experiences to haunt his dreams. Dean's mostly protected him from the bad things. Sam's never had to kill something with his bare hands, and Dean's determined to keep it that way. Sam does well in high school, graduates with honors, wins a full-ride to Stanford, and Dean drives him there, helps him move into his dorm room (one duffel, one bed-in-a-bag charged to a fake card at a local Walmart). Dean finds an apartment, gets a job at a local auto shop, tries to stay out of the way so Sam can have a normal college experience.
It lasts about a month. Then Sam calls, drunk and crying, missing Dean so much he can't study, can't think straight or eat or sleep. Dean makes him stay in the dorm for the rest of that first year, visiting pretty much every night, but that summer Sam moves off-campus into Dean's apartment and things are easier after that. They discover how easy it is to let people think they're a couple; nobody ever asks, since it's pretty obvious, and they don't really look enough alike to make anyone suspect that they're related. It's close to San Francisco, and half that city is gay, and Sam and Dean fit right in, finally find the normal lives they never had growing up. Dean figures he can even forge adoption papers, go through the black market if they ever decide to have kids.
For years after Old Sam's death, Dean mourns him. He wakes up sobbing, images of blood and feathers and fire all crowding together in his nightmares. Sam holds him, soothes him, kisses the tears away, but it takes a long time for Dean to stop sleeping with a gun under his pillow, to resist the urge to salt the doors and windows every night before they go to bed. Old habits, especially the ones learned under extreme stress in childhood and early adulthood, are the hardest to break, and Dean's well into his thirties before he begins to relax, lets go of the terrible fear that Sam's going to die horribly in his arms. But eventually, with Sam's constant reassuring presence and steadfast love, Dean feels the memories begin to fade, doesn't grieve so intensely anymore when he thinks about all of Old Sam's suffering, the horror of his life and death.
"You saved me from that, Dean," Sam reminds him when Dean gets drunk and maudlin and starts going on about how miserable Old Sam was and how Dean wishes he could've done something. "You spared me all that. You did. I'm him, remember? You fixed it so I never have to live that life, I never have to suffer that way. You did that. And I'm grateful, okay? Come here and let me show you how grateful I am."
And when Sam does, when he's deep inside Dean's willing body and Sam is pounding into him, making him forget everything except this moment, this time, being possessed and filled up and devoured by this Sam – it's almost enough to wipe his memory clean, to make him forget that sad, tortured version of Sam who will never exist because he died on a Missouri field that day. When Sam is thirty-one, about the age he must've been when that happened, Dean finds himself lying awake at night, just watching Sam sleep. And when Sam calls him on it, blushing and giving Dean one of his perfect dimpled grins, lighting up the room with it like he always does, Dean just shakes his head.
"I'm imagining you old, Sam, like you were when I first saw you," Dean admits. "Like you were when I was little. Like you will be some day."
"Thanks to you," Sam lifts his eyebrows, reaching up to trace Dean's cheek with his fingertips.
They've already talked about it several times because it never makes sense to Dean that both alternate realities existed simultaneously, that in one Old Sam just went on without Dean for the rest of his long life, dropping in to visit his little-boy brother like some kind of consolation prize for losing his life-long partner. Not to mention the older version of Dean that Sam visited more than once, who was living in some kind of bunker with knives and guns all over the walls, a man whose body was covered in battle scars and whose soul seemed so dark and embittered it makes Sam sad just to think about him. Old Dean welcomed twelve-year-old Sam's visits like he had been waiting for them for a very long time, like they were the only thing he still lived for.
Sam says they were both alternate realities, other ways he and Dean might've ended up if Dean hadn't killed the beast that day. Neither of them ever uses its name, Dean because he can't shake the feeling that Sam was the creature's target all along, its namesake, and Sam doesn't mention it because he doesn't want to upset Dean over what feels to him like such a trivial thing.
"The important thing is, it's gone," he tells Dean. "It doesn't exist here. Like you used to tell me when we were kids: angels don't exist."
And that's a good thing. Dean's just sure that's a good thing.
Definitely beats the alternative.
