Sometimes when he sleeps, Dean sees flashes of other Dean Winchesters, in other universes. His dreams lately have been filled with himself in a thousand forms, a thousand different versions of what could have been. Dean likes to think that they're made of the same star stuff, but whatever the cause, he feels the connection.
Some have been vastly different (he spent an entire day lost in thought about a female version of himself who was apparently a rodeo queen by day and monster hunter by night).
Some are so similar that the lines between his actual self and the other blur to the point of confusion; is he dreaming about himself or a different Dean who made one different choice twenty years ago?
He can always tell the difference, eventually. A scar in the wrong place, an absent friend or loved one still around or maybe someone gone who shouldn't be. In one universe, someone neglected Baby (couldn't have been Dean, had to've been Sam) to the point where she pulls slightly to the left.
Dean spends the morning after that dream with a muscle tick in his cheek and a suspicious, side-eyed glare for Sam that he never bothers to explain.
But there's one particular Other Dean, a favorite one his mind drifts to during rare peaceful moments. Daydreaming when he should be researching, drifting off when a particular song plays on the radio while he's working on Baby, even washing his hands sometimes will pull him back to those dreams.
Unsurprisingly, his favorite alternate world has no monsters. It's not that he isn't aware of monsters in this dimension, that he doesn't hunt them. No, in this other world, there's no magic, no terrifying creatures of the night at all. He can feel the lightness of this world, steadiness that comes with not having to worry about whether a vampire is going to make this evening walk your last or a wendigo is going to join you on your camping trip.
Dean has a theory that this world was a test world, one where Chuck decided to just let things evolve as they would with very little interference. Humanity still has its issues: war, plague, famine, politics, streaming services that have lived long enough to become the villain.
But no monsters.
Chuck has left this world more or less alone, and Dean is pretty sure he knows why. In God's eyes, a world without monsters is stale. This alternate world is a world without supernatural conflict, without apocalypse-level struggle, without life and death and good and evil and all that high-stakes, cursed-destiny crap Chuck literally eats for breakfast.
Boring. This world is a snoozefest for Chuck, and Dean's okay with that.
In fact, he loves it.
He's been rooting for this world for a while now. He still dreams of it sometimes, so he knows somewhere deep inside that it's still around. He knows all the worlds will be destroyed eventually, wiped away by Chuck's callous cruelty. But this one…
Dean's not the sentimental type, not really, but if he could send it a greeting card, it'd be that cat from years ago on the motivational poster, clawing onto a tree branch.
Hang in there, baby.
He must have done something right for once, because he drifts off and finds himself back there again. He's a little older in this universe, and he suspects his other self is in denial about beginning to need glasses. A shame, too. A mechanic's gotta be able to see what he's doing, and the eyestrain headaches his other self suffers every night would probably clear up completely if he'd just go get his eyes checked.
But they both know he won't.
He sees better with his hands than his eyes these days. At forty-eight years old (none of that years young bullshit, either; he's old, and he's goddamn earned it), he's spent his entire life in a garage working on one motor or another, same as his dad before him, and so on.
It's honest work, clean despite the grease, and Dean himself has used his own money to help put at least a couple of generations of little Winchesters through college or wherever their hearts took them, starting back with his brother. Dean and his dad both feel pride over Dr. Winchester, the history professor. Might not make as much as a mechanic, but he's happy and settled, and really, what man could ask for more?
The best part of this Dean's day, the best part of his whole life, is her. He's known her for nearly three decades and loved her just as long.
He was a twenty-year-old punk, learning his way through the art of motorcycles. He'd spent his life so far working on muscle cars, something he would never completely tire of, but now he was in absolute heaven. Dad's buddy Danny Elkins had agreed to take Dean on, and Dean had taken to bikes like it was meant to be.
Four months into his new life, Danny's daughter brought her dad lunch, and, for the first time in his life, Dean wondered whether there might actually be a woman who could pull his attention from an engine for longer than a night or two.
It was more or less instant attraction for the both of them, kinda like the movies that she loved to watch. Unlike those movies, however, there was no disapproving father to contend with or prove himself to.
"She's a big girl and can crack your skull just as good as me," he'd told Dean. "Pretty sure she's settled on ya, so just make sure you're worth it."
So that's what Dean did.
Tonight's dream finds the older Dean alone in the garage, and the sun is at the tail end of setting. Splashes of indigo and orange paint the horizon, framing her approach in a wash of colors blending into shadows that hold no danger.
"Figured you'd forget dinner tonight, what with your new toy. Thought we could share, and you could show me what you've been up to."
She doesn't really care about the bikes, the cars, any of it. She only cares that it matters to him, and whatever keeps him running is something she wants to be a part of.
Surrounded by motorcycles in various states of repair and assembly, they speak quietly of their day, sharing the tiny details and separate moments that make up their simple life. She feeds him a bit of meatloaf with her fingers, and he eagerly returns the favor by sucking a smear of mashed potatoes from the corner of her mouth.
She sets the dinner containers aside, twisting to the side to reach for the apple cobbler she made yesterday, when he realizes he can't stand even that bit of separation between. He's been without her all day; that's too much to ask of any man.
"C'mere," he says.
Dessert forgotten, she settles astride his lap, arms linked around his neck, smiling that serene combination of lips and eyes and cheekbones that makes his heart twist and his groin swell same as the first time she turned them on him almost thirty years ago.
They've sat like this a thousand times, and he prays silently he'll get at least a thousand more. When they were kids, crazy and hungry for every experience, she'd come into the garage in her little tank top, her tiny shorts showing off her new ink, heels fit to kill someone (how she never broke an ankle has always been a mystery and a miracle, in both Deans' opinions).
She scrubs a thumb over his bearded jawline, humming deep in her chest. She's swapped the tiny skirts for jeans, although he thanks his lucky stars every day that fashions have moved from bootcut back to skinny. Harder to get off quick, but damn does he love the lines of her legs in 'em.
They press foreheads together as an old Traffic song plays over the radio, swaying gently, always in sync.
"Dear Mr. Fantasy, play us a tune," he half-whispers, half-sings, breath warm on her cool cheek.
"Something to make us all happy," she answers in kind, eye closed. She slides her nose alongside his, runs her chin over his wiry beard, smiles into his kiss as it buffs her face red.
Perhaps in remembrance of their long-past youth, she's chosen her smallest tank-top, one she'd normally never wear without at least a button-up over it, and he drops his head to rub his cheeks over the bare skin over her collarbone. Her legs link behind his back, anchoring her as she leans back to allow him more access.
God, what she can still do to him. The salt of her skin, the fragrance of her perfume that he picked out for her on their first anniversary that she's worn religiously ever since, the silk of her hair that he tangles between fingers that still tremble with eager nerves.
Older Dean and worn-out, monster-plagued Dean sigh together, content down to their bones. This life is it for both of them. She is it. One Dean still can't believe his amazing luck after all these years, and the other aches at the simple, total happiness he feels honored to witness.
"Dean."
The older man runs a reverent hand down his wife's arm, twining his fingers with hers. He kisses her knuckles, a few more crinkles lining his eyes as he smiles.
"Dean, wake up."
The scene before him begins to fade as she takes his face between her hands, kisses his temples, the spot between his eyes, the corner of his mouth. For just a second, this Dean (the "real" Dean, as Chuck put it) feels those kisses, looks deep into her eyes and feels that warmth and light that she brings to the other man's life.
I love you, she whispers, and he allows himself to believe for one moment that she's talking directly to him.
"Dean, come on, Cas has a lead." Sam's voice finally breaks the dream wide open, and Dean reluctantly opens his eyes. "We gotta go check it out. Get dressed."
"Yeah."
He sits up slowly, feeling each of his forty-one years with an ache that no longer surprises him. He swings his legs over the side of his bed, rests his elbows on his knees, and drops his face in his hands. If he concentrates hard enough, he can still feel her phantom caress, her thumb against his cheekbone, her lips on the corner of his.
I love you.
Dean scrubs at his face with hands that get a little older and a little more scarred every day. Warrior's hands, a testament to his hunts and battles. If he squints a little (maybe he needs an eye exam, too) he can imagine they're different sorts of scars: burns from hot engines, cuts and scrapes from tools and every-day hard work rather than knives and punches.
He inhales, gathering strength, putting on his mental armor piece by piece. A knight, riding off to save the world from the devouring dragon. He reaches over and grabs his jeans, sliding them on and standing in a smooth motion that is accompanied by only one or two pops and cracks.
I love you.
Dean doesn't know how this is all going to end. He knows how he won't let it end: him against Sammy, to the death and all that biblical Cain and Abel crap. But beyond that, he's going to fight to save his brother, all of his little patchwork family, because they're all he has in this world.
He wonders briefly if his other self's wife exists in this world, or if she's just an anomaly, a one-time figment of Chuck's imagination. He's pretty sure it's the latter; a man can only get that lucky once in a thousand lifetimes, and that other Dean is that one in a thousand.
This Dean could search a lifetime and never find her. She's already been found, and maybe, just maybe if he and Sam can get their act together and bring the final beatdown on Chuck in enough time, he can save her. He can't have her, but he could save her world, leave her safe and happy with his other self.
"Let it be enough," he says aloud, not sure if he's coaxing himself or the universe. He says it again, one more time for luck.
It has to be enough.
…
"Dear Mr. Fantasy" by Traffic
Dear Mister Fantasy, play us a tune,
Something to make us all happy.
Do anything take us out of this gloom.
Sing a song, play guitar,
Make it snappy.
You are the one who can make us all laugh,
But doing that you break out in tears.
Please don't be sad if it was a straight mind you had.
We wouldn't have known you all these years.