Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Mary and John bring Dean’s little brother home from the hospital, his skin is smooth and unblemished.

“Let me see, let me see!” Dean demands, squirming up onto the couch beside his mother to look at the fleshy blob wrapped lovingly in soft, blue blankets. Mary chuckles and presents the baby, small and pink and alien, but somehow so familiar. Dean frowns. “It’s ugly.”

“Dean!” Mary chides gently, and John chuckles from his place in the kitchen where he packs up the brand new diaper bag. “That’s not a very nice thing to say! All babies look like this when they’re born - you, too.”

This is news to Dean, and his jaw drops, eyes snapping back to the baby. It starts to cry, and it’s a screeching, ear-bursting kind of wail. Dean flinches, watches the baby’s face turn red with alarming swiftness.

Mary doesn’t seem to mind, however, and coos over the baby’s head, rocking back and forth, gentle, free fingertips running through the light brown peach fuzz atop its scalp. “Now, now, baby,” she murmurs. “Momma’s got you. And your big brother Dean is here, too. He’s going to be a great big brother to you, aren’t you, Dean? Just like we talked about with daddy?”

Dean still doesn’t know what it means to be a good older brother, but nods. He’s eager to show his mom he can do anything she wants him to; dad had pulled Dean aside as Mary stumbled out to the car when her labor pains started, told him he would be a great man one day, and that regardless of what happens in life, it’s Dean’s job to protect his little brother.  Then dad had fetched the neighbor to watch Dean until their return some thirty hours later, and now there’s a screeching baby against his mother’s breast.

“Anything yet, Mary?” comes John’s deep drawl from the kitchen.

Mary checks the baby’s skin, arms, legs, chest, gently peeks beneath the blankets to get a glimpse of his back, then calls out, “Nothing yet, sweetheart.”

John lumbers back into the living room, giving a soft, rare smile at Dean and his mother and the baby, sitting huddled together on the couch. Dean has never seen a smile like that on his dad’s face. “Well, that just means we need to wait a little longer, or his soulmate hasn’t been born yet.”

“Probably the latter,” Mary says, stroking her baby’s soft cheek. “He’s already a whole day old. It usually takes just a few hours for the words to appear.”

“Looks like our boys are both fated for younger partners, huh?” John says, and sits heavy beside Dean, sinking into the sofa with a sigh. “Wonder what kind of girls will sweep you two off your feet.”

John’s sleeves are rolled up, and Dean catches a glimpse of the words elegantly looped into the skin of his forearm. Dean can’t read, but he knows what they say, has heard both his mother and father tell the story a dozen different times. Dean looks at his own arm, empty. He doesn’t really know what it means, but the baby keeps crying, and Mary’s attempts to shush it aren’t going well.

“Maybe he wants his big brother,” she says, smiling at her oldest son. “Would you like to hold him, Dean?”

Dean extends his arms, and careful, so careful, Mary places the baby into them. Dean’s shocked at how warm the screaming mass is, how soft its skin, how warm its body. This close, he can see the baby’s face properly, the wide, toothless cavern of its mouth, the tiny wrinkles around its nose, the dimples in its cheeks, and Dean realizes he’s holding a teeny human. The cries die down, and John laughs.

“Huh. Would you look at that? I think he likes you.”

“We decided on a name,” Mary tells him, and gently pats Dean’s head. “Sam. Your brother’s name is Sam.”

Dean looks down at his brother in his arms, the small, miniature person as fragile as fine china, and he knows what his father meant by becoming a great man. “Hi, Sammy,” Dean whispers. “I’m going to look after you.”

There’s a chuckle in Mary’s voice as she takes Sam from Dean’s arms. “Sammy? Well, that’s a nice nickname. Maybe we’ll call him that from time to-”

Mary cuts off.

Dean looks up, and his mother’s eyes are wide, her lips pressed tightly together, the color draining to white in her cheeks. John leans forward. “Mary? What is it, sweetheart?”

“John,” she whispers, “Oh my god, John.”

She’s holding back a part of the blanket that Sam is wrapped in, and Dean can’t see what she’s looking at, but John inhales sharply and Dean stretches his neck and shoulders up to see.

“Dean,” his father barks, “upstairs, now.”

“Dad-”

“Now, Dean!”

And Dean is overcome with the urge to reach out and holds his baby brother again, to take him upstairs with him, because dad said it was his job to protect him, and Dean doesn’t think the look on his parents’ faces means they are safe. But he’s only a child, and he heeds his father’s words and races up the stairs without another word, even though every cell in his body is screaming at him not to leave.

Late that night, Dean awakens to the smell of smoke.

--- --- ---

Dean is thirteen when he finally gets the courage to confront his father.

“Dad. We need to talk.”

John Winchester glances up from the tools he shines, and places them down on his workbench. He pats the hood of the Impala with more care than he’s ever shown a living thing. “Want to help me tune up the engine, son?”

For a moment Dean is starstruck, speechless. “You - you’d let me?”

“You’re practically a man now,” John says. “A man needs to know how to take care of his car. Now why don’t you grab me that extra can of wax from the shed?”

Dean is halfway back to the garage, can of wax heavy in his hand, before he realizes he’s been completely blindsided. Angry and more than a little betrayed, Dean leaves the wax in the dying grass and hot sunshine and returns to where John polishes the rims of the wheels.

“Where’s the wax, boy?”

“Fuck the wax, dad,” Dean growls, and John doesn’t even try to chastise his language. “I came in here to ask you a question, and don’t you ignore me.”

John meets Dean’s eyes, wipes his hands free of grease on a dirty cloth. “Okay, Dean. You win. What do you want to ask me?”

But now that he’s here, the words are stuck in his throat, too swollen for air to pass in and out, and he thinks he might faint. His head is spinning and he can smell smoke all around him, and saying it is the hardest thing he’s ever made himself do. “Why - why can’t I go see mom?”

John doesn’t so much as sigh. “We’ve talked about this, Dean.”

“Dad, if you think I believe-”

“Your mother and I divorced before you were old enough to remember it. She doesn’t want anything to do with us. It’s god’s honest truth, son.”

But what Dean remembers of his mother, although dim, is that she was a kind woman, strong beyond belief, and she never would have abandoned them. Dean flees to his room, even though it’s only been his for twelve days and is likely to be for only twelve more. Still, he’s made the most of it, put posters of his favorite bands and his favorite actresses over the walls, draped a few jackets over the second-hand furniture, and left several pairs of socks balled up on the carpeted floor.

He makes sure to slam the door behind him.

Long after the moon has come out and the rumbling engine of the Impala has taken his father away to a hunt, Dean stares at the words on his wrist.

They appeared a long time ago - he doesn’t remember when, but from what little John tells him, it wasn’t until several years after he was born. Dean knows it’s weird to get soul words too late in life; three years ago when he was ten, a girl in his school finally had hers appear, and the entire town was abuzz with gossip. A decade is a large age gap, unusual, Dean would even say uncanny.

It ended up boiling down to “well, it’s their fate’ and ‘once her soulmate turns eighteen, they’ll be very happy together”. Dean listened to all the talk, like the others, but never added his thoughts. Four years old isn’t unheard of, Dean knows as much. Sometimes on the news there will be stories of people that don’t get their soul words until they’re twenty or older, but Dean hopes they’re happy, ignoring the irony of hoping he never meets his soulmate.

He often looks at the words on his wrist when he feels unloved by his father, because they make him grateful for what he does have.

Dean’s soulmate has messy handwriting.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

He says the words aloud, feels them on the back of his tongue. They taste strange, sound even stranger coming from his own mouth. Dean wonders what kind of person his soulmate is.

Whoever they are, he hopes they don’t come from a broken home like his.

Dean lays his belly flat on the grimy floor and reaches under his bed. His hand traces the hard edge of an old shoebox, and he brings it into the light. Inside is the only proof that he has a mother; a torn photograph of a smiling woman, his father standing with a hand on her shoulder to her right, baby Dean sitting on her lap.

She must look different now, Dean thinks. Thirteen years is a long time, but he likes to think he would recognize her if he saw her. His father looks different, too, older, more frown than man, a weight-of-the-world hunch to his shoulders.

Dean knows he had a little brother.

His name is Sam, he’s four years younger than Dean, and he lives with Dean’s mother, but besides that, he knows nothing about him.

Dean glances at the photo again. He looks like their mom. Does Sam look like their mom, too?

—- —- —-

When Dean is nineteen he steals the Impala and drives it halfway across the country. He gets all the way to Utah, stops right at the border to Nevada, and finds he can’t go any farther.

He still has a state to drive through before he reaches California, but he has a hundred missed calls from his father, and with every new and ignored ring on his phone, his doubt expands.

What if his dad is right? What if Dean’s mother doesn’t want to see him, hasn’t ever looked him up or come to visit because he’s done something wrong? Dean knows he’s not a perfect man, and he was far from a perfect child. Still, what is it about him that made her choose Sam?

Oh god, Dean thinks, the Impala pulled over on a cluttered freeway emergency lane, his hands clutching the steering wheel; what if she just loves Dean’s little brother more?

In two days he pulls the car back into his dad’s garage.

He’s expecting a good punch or two, maybe a few cutting cusses and hurtful words, but as John Winchester races from the house with anger swirling in his eyes, Dean fights back tears.

John stalls.

“Why doesn’t she want me, dad?” Dean whispers hoarsely.

He’s not even sure if John heard, but there’s the sound of boots digging into the gravel, footsteps closing the distance, and his father pulls Dean into a tight, fierce embrace.

They stand like this for what feels like hours, Dean’s tears soaking the shoulder of John’s shirt.

—- —- —-

When Dean is twenty-two he breaks up with his girlfriend of four months.

It’s messy - there are a lot of tears and even more yelling, eventually a shy question if they can remain friends.

Not after that display, Dean had told her, and he hopped into his junk car and sped away.

He cuts ties with all the other women in his life, too, old flames, booty calls, the works. He’s done with meaningless stuff. John seems more than a little suspicious when he gets back to the house to find a home cooked meal waiting for him on the table.

“What’s all this?” he asks.

Dean points. “It’s called grub, dad. I’ve been fixing cars all day and you’ve been hunting all of the deer in Wisconsin. Aren’t you hungry?”

“Peas?” John gruffs. “Grilled cheese sandwiches? Canned soup?”

“How do you know it’s canned?” Dean asks, holding up a finger. “I worked hard on this dinner.”

John sits at the worn, second-hand table, eyes narrow. “What’s the occasion?”

“Sick of takeout, is that a crime?”

“In this house it might as well be.”

Dean opens his mouth, hesitates. “I, uh, I broke up with Allison.”

John takes a sandwich, turns it over, grimaces at the burned bread on the bottom. “Shame, that. What’d you do this time?”

“Jesus, dad, give a man a little credit! I said I broke up with her, okay? I didn’t do shit.”

“Why’d you go and do something like that? I thought you liked Allison.”

Dean licks his lips. “Uh. I don’t want to date around anymore.”

John holds very, very still. “What do you mean?”

“I’m going to wait for my soulmate,” Dean explains.

John’s hands thud to the table. “ Dean -“

“You said I got my soul words when I was four,” he continues, cutting his father off. “That makes my soulmate eighteen. What if I meet them tomorrow and I’m still dating Allison? Or anyone? I can’t put everyone through that!”

“We’ve had dozens of conversations about this, son. You may never meet your soulmate; they could die tomorrow and you’d be all alone, waiting for them for the rest of your life. You can’t live like that.”

“Then why did you and mom get divorced?” he challenges. “She was your soulmate, didn’t you love her enough to stay with her?”

“Boy,” John whispers, and the air is suddenly very cold, “you don’t talk about your mother and me.  Ever. You hear me?”

Dean’s jaw snaps shut. He inhales. “I’m not going to waste my life by creating layers of separation between me and my soulmate. I’m not you, dad, no matter how much you wish I was.”

John stares, the hurt and anger evident in the shine in his eyes. His jaw is tight, and he picks up his sandwich. “So be it. God help you, Dean.” He takes a bite.

—- —- —-

A month after Dean’s twenty-fourth birthday, John Winchester dies.

He was never a rich man, so he leaves Dean the Impala, and it somehow means more than just money, is more valuable than all the gold in the world. But Dean is bitter, confused, broken.

He has a lifetime of loneliness and unanswered questions, and open wounds from John’s death that no car can ever mend.

For a while Dean tries to get on with his life, sells the small house they had shared for all of eleven months, packs up his few belongings and moves from Maryland to New York. A big city is what he needs, Dean thinks, somewhere to keep his mind off of the future, just enough noise and people and traffic to blur out the pain when it surfaces.

He’s only lived there a week when he decides to find his mother.

It’s a frantic forty four hour drive from New York to California, and Dean doesn’t stop to sleep along the way, eyes seeing the moving road every time he gets out of the Impala to gas it up or take a quick piss in a 7-11 bathroom. He has tunnel vision, starts to smell by the eleven-hour mark, doesn’t change his clothes, is running on frozen burritos and diet coke in cracked, plastic Big Gulps, but he can’t stop.

All his life, John had given Dean one very simple rule.

Don’t look for Mary Winchester.

But he can’t help the force that pushes him on, through two whole days of nonstop travel, cannot resist the allure of seeing his mother for the first time in twenty years. He isn’t sure what he’ll tell her, ask her.

Dad’s dead. Did you love him? Did you ever love me?

California is uncomfortably warm.

The house Dean’s mother once lived in is occupied by strangers who inform him that she and her son have moved, and that the boy is in college. They think he’s living in the Stanford dormitories, and Dean’s head spins; someone from his family is smart enough for Stanford? All Dean is good for is hunting buck and fixing cars.

He gets a few looks when he arrives on campus, and he can’t blame anyone for staring - he’s visibly streaked in dirt and oil, hair greasy, dark bags under his eyes from the lack of sleep, his whole frame wired and twitchy from all the caffeine he drank to keep himself awake. This isn’t the state he wants to reunite with his mother in, but he figures he can get her new address from his brother, and find a place to shower before he heads over.

Meets her.

His mom.

The woman he’s been forbidden to see for as long as he remembers, but has never once forgotten.

Something has been missing, Dean knows. He hasn’t once felt whole, not since his parent’s separation, and her absence must be the culprit, has to be responsible for the ache he feels every single day.

“Heya,” Dean greets a twenty-something girl sitting at a desk, charming smile on his face. She glances up from her monitor, takes in his grimy shirt and gritty hair, but the cold edge in her eyes fades when she sees his grin, and she melts.

“Hi,” she returns. “How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for someone, but I don’t know what room they’re in,” Dean explains. “Could you help me out, there?”

“Oh,” she begins, thin brow drawing together, “I’m sorry, it’s against policy to reveal a student’s room number. Can you call them? Maybe they can come down to get you.”

“Don’t have his number,” Dean says through his teeth, fighting to keep his cheeks lifted. “He’s expecting me.”

“I simply can’t-“

“He’s got my room key,” Dean lies. “Yeah. We have, y’know, trig together, and he was gonna do me a favor over the weekend and water my, uh, plant. So I just need to get my key and I’ll be golden.”

The young woman frowns. “You’re a student? What room do you live in, if you give me your student ID I can open your door-“

“But then I won’t have my key,” he chuckles, tension cricking in his neck. “Come on, sweetheart. Can a pretty girl like you help a fella out?”

He winks, out of desperation.

The girl slowly says, “I guess, just this once. But only because you’re cute.”

“Much obliged, darling,” Dean says, and the young woman positions her claw-like nails over her keyboard.

“What’s his name?”

Dean stands in front of the door for twenty minutes.

His heart is beating rapidly in his chest, refuses to calm. He has no idea what’s stopping him - it should be as simple as a knock on the door and a query of an address, but it’s the hardest thing in the world.

If Dean rekindles a relationship with his mom, assuming she’s willing to have him in her life, that will mean having his little brother in his life too. They’ve missed out on their entire childhood together, hardly know anything about the other in the least, have zero memories where they’re both present.

This is like knocking on a stranger’s door, but Dean has questions and John’s death hurts, so he steels his breath and lifts a fist, knuckles rapping to the wood just below the metal number.

For a long while, nothing happens.

The hitch of a latch, the squeak of a rusty knob, and the door opens.

Sam Winchester is tall.

He’s got a whole head on Dean, broader shoulders, longer legs, but a thinner waist and kinder eyes. He’s surprised to find that Sam resembles their father more than Mary, unlike Dean himself, but he can tell that they’re brothers just in the curve of their jaws, the points of their noses, the round of their chins. Where Dean is hard and hunched, Sam is gentle and giant, a softness to his frame that Dean wishes he had, an envy he doesn’t want blooming in his belly.

Sam stares, one hand clutching a mug of fragrant coffee, and waits.

Dean clears his throat. “Hi, Sam,” he starts. “I don’t know if you know who I am. I’m Dean - I’m your brother. Can I come in?”

Sam says, “You shouldn’t be here.”

Dean’s sleeve is heavy against his wrist.

Air caught in his throat.

Head light.

The words inked into his skin are burning, hot, hotter than they’ve ever been, and there’s no way this is real, no way it’s possible, it’s a joke, a trick, a cruel, horrid twist of fate.

Sam doesn’t need to say anything else.

Dean recoils.

Turns.

Runs.

Chapter Text

Somewhere on everyone’s bodies are the words their soulmate will first say to them.

They’re always inked, like a tattoo, in the handwriting of their soulmate. It helps, sometimes, for people to be sure they’ve found the right one, when just the words aren’t enough. The words appear a few hours after a person’s birth, if their other half is already alive. Some people don’t have to wait at all; others must wait for years.

Dean Winchester didn’t get his soul words until he was four.

Many nights over the course of his life, Dean has often wondered under what circumstances he would meet his soulmate.

When he was young, he hadn’t wanted to at all, because the words etched into the flesh of his wrist made him sad, made him angry. As he grew, he couldn’t deny the curiosity that consumed him, the uncertainty and uniqueness of what you shouldn’t be here could mean.

He was a rough-n-tumble teen, did stupid shit just so his dad would mention it, be it with reprimand or praise; it wouldn’t have been uncommon for Dean to be caught at the local pool after hours, perhaps sneaking into a teacher’s classroom to hide stink bombs in their desk, maybe even dancing at a club far past curfew, a fake ID in his pocket.

There are dozens of places Dean went simply because he shouldn’t have been there, had no business in that place, was just not allowed. Age restrictions, gender restrictions, authority restrictions, he ignored them all. Sometimes he was caught, but even when he was, not a single person had ever said the words branded into his wrist.

Until Sam.

Dean’s breath comes in fast, shallow bursts, his lungs tight and his skin cold.

This is not reality, it cannot be. Dean is destined for someone, and if he’s laughably unlucky, that person will die before he can meet them. But this … This is a new level of absurd.

Dean’s foot hovers over the gas of the Impala, fists gripping the steering wheel, when he pauses, thinks.

Is this the reason for everything? The reason Dean grew up without a mother and never met his brother, the reason John’s absolute rule of No Mary Winchester now sounds more like No Sam Winchester ?

Sam hadn’t reacted the way someone meeting their soulmate would; it’s possible he doesn’t know, but how couldn’t he? Dean shuts his eyes, the Impala still parked in his spot by the dormitories, tries to remember what he had said when the door opened and his life changed.

I’m your brother .

No, maybe

I’m Dean.

But it doesn’t line up, something is amiss, and suddenly, Dean smells smoke.

He’s staring at the ceiling of his childhood bedroom, watches the slate grey mist as it obscures the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars above.

Before that, he presses his ear to his door, tries to hear the frantic whispers, sobs, and occasional shouts from his parents downstairs. He wonders what they’re talking about, wonders what he did wrong.

Before that, Dean holds a baby in his arms, stares down at it in awe and wonder, and his mother says your brother’s name is Sam , and he whispers-

- something .

Dean’s already said his words, he realizes.

And here, twenty years later, Sam has finally said his.

Dean shuts the engine off with a flick of his wrist, pockets the keys. There’s only one way to know.

Dean knocks on Sam’s door for eight seconds before it swings open again, the same tall man with the same John-Winchester-like face behind it, the look of guilt in his - what color are they? Green, brown? - eyes. The coffee mug is gone, and Dean scans Sam’s arms and neck for his soul words, but he finds none.

“Hey,” they say, at the same time, and Sam’s pink face flushes a dusty red.

“Uh, sorry,” he apologizes. “You go first.”

“No, go ahead.”

Sam’s body leans, lanky and a touch awkward, a hand coming up to touch the back of his neck. “I’m sorry,” he blurts. “I didn’t mean to scare you off like that. I was just surprised to see you, I guess. I never thought I’d meet you.”

Dean doesn’t speak, can’t trust himself to.

“You’re really Dean Winchester?” Sam asks, staring straight through him, into his eyes, into his heart, gaze as disarming as it is unexpectedly powerful. “You’re really my brother?”

Dean nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Sam’s wide face splits into an even wider smile, and there’s something so innocent, so charming about it that Dean almost feels bad when he doesn’t move forward to accept the hug when Sam lifts his arms. They lower again, untouched. “It’s, uh,” he coughs, “wow. It’s nice to meet you. Why did you come?”

“Our dad’s dead,” Dean says, because he refuses to sugarcoat it, can’t make this easy for either of them. “I came here because I want to see my mother; I want to tell her what’s happened. I have some questions I need to ask.”

Sam’s face falls. “Oh.”

A beat; Dean waits it out.

“Dad died?”

It irks him, and Dean hates that it does, that this stranger casually refers to a man he has never met as ‘dad’. It bothers him, because Sam has never even met his father, has no memories of him, knows as little about John as Dean knows about Sam. “He died a few weeks ago. Can you give me mom’s address? I was at the old house and they said she moved, that you were here.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam says. “You can’t see her.”

“Why the hell not?” Dean asks, feels his temper rise, gripping his throat with iron claws. “She’s my own goddamn mother, I think I’ve earned the right!”

Sam opens his mouth, says, “She died, too,” and Dean’s world collapses, a black hole, a supernova, eating him from the inside out.

“No,” Dean whispers. No.

A hand on his shoulder, warm through his jacket. Brown irises, or maybe green, a thousand colored fractals spun in tiny threads, drawing him in, holding his gaze. “Do you want to come inside, Dean?”

--- --- ---

“How did she die?” Dean asks after he’s calmed down.

Sam has made him a cup of tea; it’s peach colored and smells like daisies, and Dean’s reluctant to try it. The mug warms his hands instead, and Sam pulls a folding chair from his small kitchen table over to the corner of the couch. Their knees almost touch when he sits. “Car accident,” Sam explains. “Some asshole drove drunk without his lights on.”

“When was this?”

“Three months ago. I, uh, I don’t have your number, or dad’s. Otherwise, I would have called. How did… how did dad die?”

“He got sick,” Dean recounts, tries not to watch the ripples in his tea as they distort his own reflection. “Three months ago. Took him a while to kick the bucket.”

They’re both thinking what Dean refuses to say - that after Mary’s death, John couldn’t hold on. He had to have known, felt it, when his soulmate died. Why didn’t he tell Dean?

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, quiet. “I wanted to meet him, you know. I planned to drive out when I graduated, see him and you for the first time. I’m sure you wanted to see mom again, too.”

“Yeah. I did.”

They fall into a lull, two perfect strangers in a small room, knees a gentle sneeze away from touching, his mother and father gone forever, and all Dean can wonder is what he said to his brother the day Sam was born.

Sam sniffs, picks at the dirt beneath his nails. “You lived with dad, right?”

“Up until he passed,” Dean affirms and sets his mug on the coffee table. “Afterwards I moved to New York.”

“I’ve always wanted to go,” Sam admits. “What are you going to do? Head back home?”

“I, ah,” Dean searches for the right words, can’t find them. “I packed up my apartment. All my things are in the trunk of my car, and I sold the house. But, that’s life, right? Shitty and unexpected. I’ll just have to head back east, I’m sure there’s a garage that could use some extra help-”

“Don’t leave.”

Dean starts badly, torso swiveling in Sam’s direction. “What?”

“Don’t leave,” Sam says again, and he’s looking at Dean with the softest, most venerable, pleading expression, depths unexplored to the way his full lips part at the middle, the worried grooves carved into the smooth of his forehead. “You don’t have anywhere to go, right?”

“I - I’m sure I’ll figure something out.”

“But you’re the only family I have left,” Sam says, and Dean knows it’s true, is startled to hear it, truly thinks about it, drinks it in. “I’ve known about you my whole life, Dean, and today you show up on my doorstep, after I thought I was alone. You can’t go, not now.”

He doesn’t want to, either, but he has to, has to tell Sam no, has to shut this down now.

“Please,” Sam begs, and slides his palm over Dean’s wrist, only a jacket between Sam and Dean’s soul words.

Dean doesn’t dare move.

“Stay. For a while.”

Dean definitely doesn’t notice the way Sam’s thick lashes flutter against his cheekbones when he blinks. “I don’t have anywhere to crash.”

It’s a weak excuse, one that Sam undoes easily. “You can stay here, we just have to keep it a secret from my RA. My roommate won’t mind.”

“I dunno, Sam…”

“Dean,” Sam breathes, as though Dean’s name is something sacred and precious, and that is his undoing.

“Okay. Okay.”

Sam tugs him by the waist for a hug, he didn’t expect it, didn’t think it would happen. Their knees finally clack together; Sam’s body is warm, even with the air-conditioning and his flimsy t-shirt, and Dean can feel him all the way to his core.

His little brother isn’t so little, and in Sam’s arms, it’s Dean that feels small.

His wrist is an extension of his body, the words an elephant that Dean needs to address, but this isn’t the time, this isn’t the place. He’ll wait, he decides, and he’ll try to find out more about his parents, their decision to separate him and Sam, if this bond is real...

In the meantime, Dean’s content to feel like shit in Sam’s embrace.

--- --- ---

Sam’s roommate has a bong in one hand and a can of cheese spray in the other, his bearded chin dropped to expose his teeth.

“Who?” he asks.

“My brother,” Sam tells him again, beaming. “Dean.”

And Dean’s hands are in the strangers before he can blink, bong and cheese set aside, and Sam’s roommate gushes, “Yo, it’s super neat to meet you, man, my name’s Theodore but like, don’t call me Theodore, call me Gage, everyone does. It’s totally cool if you wanna crash here, any brother of Sam’s is a brother of mine, man. We’ve been roomies for two years now and he’s like real family to me, but only I guess you’re actually real family, but you’re super welcome in our dorm and I want you to know that I’m glad you’re here for him, man.”

He says it all very fast.

“I appreciate that, Gage,” Dean says, tries to pry his hand from Theodore’s grip.

“Sam and I had plans to go to this bar tonight, not too far off campus if you wanna come with. We can pick up, like, an extra pillow and shit while we’re out, some blankets if you want, it can get kinda cold in the living room and the couch isn’t the best, unless you don’t need blankets because you’re a human heat lamp like Sam is, but if you’re not we could do that before or after we get drinks. Shit, probably before, I’m definitely gonna get smashed tonight, but we’ll need a car to put your stuff in, do you have a car?”

“Gage,” Sam sighs fondly, “you’re overwhelming him. He’s only been here two hours. Don’t you still have Alexander’s assignment to finish before we go?”

“Shit, man,” groans Theodore, “you’re right. She’s so picky, dude, I’ve already written like, seventeen different drafts for the essay and, y’know, always leave out some part of the criteria-”

“ Gage ,” Sam interrupts, “Go finish your homework. I’ll take Dean shopping now.”

“Oh fuck,” Theodore exclaims, “I forgot you two have like, never met. I’ll stay in tonight, you two should go and talk, have fun.”

He backs into his room, and Dean spies guitars and band posters all over the walls before he slams the door.

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” Sam chuckles. “Gage is a character. So, pillows?”

“Pillows,” Dean agrees, wonders if he could make a break for it now, escape before Sam’s puppy eyes catch up to him. “And some shampoo, if they have it. I stink.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but that’s kind of an understatement.”

It’s not funny, and Dean can’t explain why he laughs anyway.

--- --- ---

“What was dad like?” Sam asks.

Dean drops the plush pillow covered in a plastic sheet into the shopping cart. “Why do you wanna know?”

“I mean, I never met him, I always wanted to. So, what was he like?”

“The best dad a guy could have,” Dean says, scooping the entire shelf of gummy vitamins into the cart. “We’d play catch out on our lawn and he took me to baseball games every weekend, would buy me the giant hot dogs with relish and ketchup.”

Sam lights up. “He would?”

“No, Sam, he was awful.” Dean seizes a handful of earplugs, the cellophane wrinkling under his fingertips. “We moved all the time. He was either in the garage working on his car or out in the wild hunting deer. He never had time for me and never trusted me to do anything right, even when he expected me to do things on my own.”

There’s a pause, and Dean won’t look up to see what kind of face his brother is making, what sort of inevitably hurt expression he’ll have. Instead of what Dean expects, though, Sam whispers, “Do you miss him?”

There’s a lump in his throat. “Yeah.”

The next aisle over, Sam reaches for a bottle of shampoo without asking Dean what he wants, and Dean lets him. Sam’s fingertips, big and clumsy, linger on the labels. “Do you want to know what mom was like?”

“I know what mom was like,” Dean snaps, and he hates that it sounds indignant. “I remember her, a bit. I don’t need to be reminded.”

Sam whispers, “Okay,” and Dean tries to push down the feeling that he’s being unfair.

They don’t move from the shampoo, and the air is tense. “Sorry,” Dean mumbles. “I’m sorry, I just don’t know what - I didn’t expect - This isn’t how I thought today would go. I can’t believe I missed her by three months. Three months . Damn it.”

And then again, because Dean doesn’t know if he’ll even be able to convey exactly how he feels, “I’m sorry, Sammy.”

In the pause, barely loud enough to hear, Sam murmurs, “I’m glad you came, Dean. I’m glad I could meet you. Thank you, for deciding to stay.”

Dean inhales.

“I know we don’t know each other yet,” Sam continues, “but you’re my brother. I feel - I feel like I’ve known you my whole life. Is that crazy?”

No.

No, it isn’t.

--- --- ---

Dean is clean but exhausted by the time he and Sam make it to the bar.

There’s something oddly comforting about the musty smell in the air, the general rumble of patrons and the low din of music. It puts Dean at ease, makes him feel at peace. He nearly forgets that he hasn’t slept in three days.

But, he can sleep when he’s dead.

“Beer for me, sweetheart,” Dean orders, and their waitress winks at him, her jaw popping as she chews her gum. He gets a noseful of something minty, winks back.

Sam sets the drink menu down. “For me, too. Thanks.”

The waitress’s ass snaps from side to side as she moves back behind the bar, and Dean watches her go. Nice .

“Well, you seem comfortable,” Sam chuckles.

“I’ve been to a lot of bars. At some point they all feel like home.”

“I meant you seem comfortable openly staring at our waitress’s ass.”

“Why ignore what can be appreciated?” Dean shrugs. “It’s the principle of it, Sammy. You indulge your eyes, don’t you?”

Sam laughs, leans his chin into his open palm. “I try not to.”

“Why’s that?”

“I have my reasons. Besides, Gage does more than enough indulging for the both of us.”

“Shame he couldn’t make it.”

“Yeah, well,” Sam shrugs, “Alexander’s classes are killer. Even if he wasn’t giving us space I bet he would have flaked.”

The waitress reappears sporting two perspiring bottles, and Dean thanks her with a cheeky grin, tips the bitter malt onto his tongue. “You two in the same major?” he asks.

Sam lifts the rim to his lips, pauses, sets the bottle back down. “Yeah. But I finish my homework before it’s due.”

It’s been a long, long day; Dean takes another large gulp, watches as a group of college kids saunters through the door, drivers licenses in hand for the doorman. “I was never cut out for college - prefer fixing things, working with my hands. Looks like you take after mom in that department. I’m the opposite.”

Sam doesn’t answer, and the silence creeps in, unwanted. Frantic, Dean searches for anything to say.

“What major is it, anyway?”

Sam takes a drink now, the end of the bottle tilted all the way up. His brow scrunches together at the taste - Dean hides his smirk behind his hand. Sam hisses in a breath. “Pre-law.”

“Whoa. Pre-law?” Dean whistles. “You must be a smarty-pants. I bet you got beat up in high school, huh?”

Sam’s mouth curves at the corners, lips wry. “Sometimes.”

Dean scoots to the edge of his chair. “How’d you deal with the baddies?”

“I-” Sam stops, abrupt.

“You…?”

Sam glances around, leans in close, so close their noses could touch if they wanted them to. “Don’t laugh,” He utters. Even now, with his hot breath tickling Dean’s ear, he can barely hear him over the babel. “I threatened to sue them.”

Something in him cracks, and a deep, booming laugh tumbles from Dean, rich and hearty. Heads turn, and Sam’s face is flushing, so wide and red that he looks like a tomato, and Dean only laughs harder.

“I told you not to.” Sam sniffs.

“How is it,” Dean gasps, fist pounding into the tabletop, “that is so like you? We barely met and that is such a Sam thing to do!”

Sam scoffs, but he’s smiling. “It didn’t get them to stop, anyway.”

“Christ, you kill me,” Dean chortles. He kicks back another mouthful of beer, raises his hand and points to the bottle, and from across the bar, their waitress nods. “Wish I could have seen that line in action. Sorry I wasn’t there - I’d definitely have kicked their asses for you, Sammy.”

“That’s the third time,” Sam blurts, and Dean drops his beer.

The glass is empty, but it clatters to the table, rolls close to the edge, doesn’t fall.

Sam’s cheeks have settled on a rosy pink, and his eyes are fire and sunlight, alert, unblinking. “That’s the third time you’ve called me Sammy.”

“What about it?” Dean asks.

“Nothing, it’s just - No one really calls me that.”

“Why not? You have something against nicknames?”

Sam hesitates.

“Sam? You okay?”

Slowly, Sam hooks one of his clumsy fingertips around the point of the v-neck t-shirt. The soft fabric twists and contorts as he holds it aside, exposes the left side of his upper chest.

For a moment, Dean doesn’t see it.

Then, it’s all Dean can see.

Eight words, so black and clear, in such familiar script that Dean would believe he’d just written it himself. Eight words in neat, small print, the T’s crossed at an upward slope, like how Dean crosses his T’s. Eight words, inked into Sam’s skin forever.

Hi Sammy

I’m going to look after you

And not for the first time today, Dean can’t breathe.

“It reminds me of my soul words. Haven’t met the person that’s going to say them yet, but… I think about it any time someone calls me Sammy.”

There’s a new bottle of beer in Dean’s hand, the old one taken away, but he can’t bring himself to drink more. He already knew it was true, but seeing it for himself is like swallowing embers, inhaling toxic fumes, jumping into the ocean in nothing but his skin.

It’s real.

It’s not just a bad dream: his blood brother is his soulmate, and their parents must have kept them apart because they knew, because they were afraid. It’s why John always coaxed Dean into dating other people, why he never allowed Dean to go to California, why he was so strict, so hard on him.

There, above his brother’s heart, are the first words Dean ever said to him.

Sam doesn’t have a clue.

The door to the bar creaks open; a young woman with hair like spun gold is smiling, right at Dean, and he blinks because he doesn’t know who she is, wonders if she thinks he’s someone else. But she’s weaving her way through the tables and bodies, teeth white as angel wings, lips red as cherries, and she only stops when she reaches him. She holds out a hand.

On her palm is etched in elegant, looped cursive, You probably hear this all the time, but you have beautiful eyes.

“Hey there,” she greets. “You’re Dean, right? Sam texted me that you’d come to visit for a while.”

Already shaking her hand, Dean looks to his brother. Sam is smiling, too, and he stands, gestures toward her. “Dean, this is Jess.”

“Jess,” Dean repeats, numb.

Sam adds, “My girlfriend,” and Dean’s world collapses for the second time today.

Chapter Text

When Dean wakes up, he doesn’t have a clue how much time has passed.

Sam and Theodore are not at home, and the gingham couch has left a pattern pressed into Dean’s cheek. He stands in the bathroom and rubs the indented flesh, tisking with each turn of his jaw to try and better the angle. Maybe it’s the lighting or maybe Dean’s just a mess, but he still looks like shit. The dark circles under his eyes have lightened, but they’re still there, and his skin is rough and patchy in places, hair sticking out at odd angles.

At least he’s clean.

Dean dips his head under the running faucet to tame his bedhead, and brushes his teeth while it dries. He changed his clothes and laces up his boots, grabs his wallet and almost heads out the door when he realizes he’s not wearing a jacket.

Hand on the knob, wrist turned up, his soul words stare at him.

Dean pulls his jacket on, obscuring the words under the cuff, and locks the door on his way out.

It’s well past one in the afternoon and Dean is starving, stomach grumbling with every step. It’s quite a trek from Sam’s dorm to the closest off-campus diner, but the heavenly scent of a working, hot grill and the promise of a slice of pie fuels him, all the way until he’s sitting in a wrinkled, worn booth with a sticky plastic menu in his hands.

“I’ll take the lunch special,” he orders, grinning at the waitress whose name tag reads Dorothy.

“What to drink, hon?” Dorothy asks, chewing a pink piece of gum with her mouth wide open, each squeak and pop of the stick audible.

“Coffee.”

Dean checks the time while he waits. Sam should be done with class in an hour or two, and he’ll want to hang out afterward. All of yesterday is a blur, save for the most important bits and pieces. Dean relives those in startling clarity with every breath.

Maybe, just maybe, Sam having a girlfriend isn’t such a bad thing.

There’s no way Dean and Sam will ever be together, no matter the fact they’re soulmates. John and Mary gave up their life together to raise them separately, and Dean understands why they had to. Destiny pairs strange people together sometimes; people with large age gaps, people from families that hate each other, a wealthy person with a destitute person, even those that live so far away from each other that only a miracle would bring them together.

But, incest is still incest.

They’ll be stoned in the streets if anyone ever finds out.

No - Dean won’t allow it. If Sam lives out his life and thinks that his soulmate must have died before they met, then Dean won’t tell him otherwise.

So yes, Sam having a girlfriend isn’t a bad thing; the opposite, honest. It’s good. It means Dean won’t need to worry about Sam developing feelings, that they can catch up on all their lost time and deepen their relationship as brothers. Dean resolves to be the best goddamn brother Sam could ask for, to be the shoulder he can cry on, the man that encourages him to finish school, to have a family, to live a normal life.

One day, somewhere in their future, Dean will watch Sam’s bride walk down the aisle. He’ll cheer with everyone else when the officiant says you may kiss the bride and he’ll clap Sam on the back, show all his teeth in his smile, blow bubbles and throw rice with everyone else as Sam and his wife run to their getaway car.

One day Dean will be an uncle to Sam’s children, and he’ll love them like his own, be a better influence in their lives that John was for him. He’ll buy them presents and fix their cars behind their dad’s back when they crash it, will sneak them extra allowance money when Sam has said no more , will take them on road trips so they can smell and taste and experience the world.

And one day, when Dean is old and brittle, Sam might ask him why he never married.

And Dean, just like his father, will carry the secret to his grave.

“Coffee, one special, and a slice of apple pie, hon.”

A steaming burger and fries are placed before him, then a wedge of cinnamon-nutmeg pie and a scoop of melting vanilla cream on top. Dean’s mouth waters, and he resolves to keep all of this to himself. Forever. “Thanks,” he says.

Dean’s halfway through his dripping cheeseburger when his phone rings. He sips at his coffee to clear his airway, wipes his fingers off on a rough napkin, and holds the phone to his ear.

“What’s up, Sammy?”

“Dean! Thank god, where are you?”

“I’m at a diner west of campus,” Dean says, popping a fry into his mouth. “You miss me?”

“Jesus, Dean, I thought you’d left. Maybe text me next time, at the very least!”

“Keep your shorts on, Sammy, I’m not going anywhere. I thought we agreed to that. Anyway, didn’t you have class or something? You out early?”

"Screw class, dude, I’ve just been waiting for you to wake up! Send me the address, I’ll be there soon."

True to his word, Sam arrives at the diner not fifteen minutes later, out of breath, dark hair windswept, cheeks flushed, lips parted. His face splits into the biggest grin when he sees Dean, and he waves as he trots over. He sinks into the booth with a loud exhale, eyes Dean’s nearly-finished meal.

“I’m starving,” he says, and nods to the leftover pie. “You gonna finish that?”

“Get your own damn pie, Sammy.” Dean pulls the small plate closer, shoves a forkful of gooey apple into his mouth. “You sure you should be skipping class to hang out with me?”

Sam rolls his eyes and glances over the menu he grabbed at the front. “You’re acting like our meeting isn’t the biggest thing that’s ever happened to us. Don’t you want to get to know me? I want to get to know you; I’ve spent a lot of my life wondering what it would be like if we grew up together.”

Dean swallows, pauses. “I, uh…”

Dorothy reappears, as if from thin air, by their table. “Company, hon? This your boyfriend?”

Sam and Dean say, “Brother,” at the same time, only Dean half-shouts it.

Dorothy stares at Dean.

Sam stares at Dean.

Dean clears his throat. “Whu- uh, what do you want to eat, Sammy?”

“Uh, right,” Sam mumbles, and tears his eyes away from Dean, looking back to his menu. “I’d like a grilled chicken super salad, a side of chili cheese fries, a scone with butter and jam, if you have the nice homemade kind, a half-order of the zesty nachos, mozzarella sticks, and a slice of cherry pie, please.”

The gum falls out of Dorothy’s mouth and onto the floor.

Dean blinks.

Sam catches his expression, frowns. “What? I’m hungry.”

“You know what, Dorothy, why don’t you just bring the cooks out when they’re done making the food?” Dean suggests. “Then my brother can eat them, too.”

Dorothy full on belly-laughs, deep and loud, turning heads from across the dining room. Sam flushes, and Dean reaches over to pat his back.

“You’re a growing boy, Sammy. Nothing to be ashamed about.”

Sam mutters, “Jerk.”

Dean shoots back, “Bitch.”

And Sam smiles, like he’s happy, as though their banter fulfills him and they’ve known each other all their lives, and Dean is struck with the thought that it wasn’t being apart from Mary Winchester that made him feel incomplete.

He knows the truth now, because Sam smiles at him and Dean’s heart thumps in his chest, and the void that’s been empty for as long as Dean can remember starts to fill.

It’s Sam.

It was always Sam.

--- --- ---

About two weeks after Dean started crashing on Sam’s couch, he realizes he needs to get a job. Saturday morning Sam climbs into the passenger’s seat of the Impala, whistles, and pats the dashboard.

“Well, dad had great taste in cars, I guess.”

“More like the best taste in cars ever,” Dean corrects, fastening his seatbelt and letting his thumb hover idlly over the key waiting to be turned in the ignition. “You sure you want to come job hunting with me?”

“Dude, you don’t know the first thing about this town. How else will you get around?”

Dean sniffs, shrugs. “Fair enough.”

The Impala’s engine purrs to life, the rumble beneath their hands and their feet. Sam’s smile widens. “She’s something else. Can I drive later?”

“Nope.” Dean punctuates the ‘p’.

Sam chuckles. “One day, maybe.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.”

They stop at a few garages along the way, long enough for Dean to drop off some hastily-crafted resumes and try his best to look cheerful and reliable. Then a traffic jam hits, and Dean finds a new meaning to hell.

“Will this never clear up?” he grumbles.

“It will eventually,” Sam promises. “It’s a California standard this time of day.”

“Gotta pass the time somehow,” Dean sighs, glancing at the lanes of unmoving traffic on either side. Another driver nearly rear-ends the bumper in front of him, and the car’s owner flips him the bird through their open window. “Tell me about you and Jess. How’d you two meet?”

Sam yawns, picks at the dirt beneath his nails. “We met at freshman orientation. She sat a few rows ahead of me, and, well, then it turned out she was in a couple of my general classes. English and some communications thing. We talked a lot and, uh, here we are.”

Dean licks his lips, grip tightening on the steering wheel. “You mentioned you haven’t met your soulmate yet, right? What happens if you meet them and you’re still dating Jess?”

“Oh,” Sam chuckles, “I know you and dad lived back east, but here on the west coast people tend to be a bit more liberal. Jess was raised to believe that her soulmate is more of a suggestion. Mom always encouraged me to date whoever I wanted, too, regardless of my soul words. Some people even end up marrying people that aren’t their soulmate, out here.”

Dean’s a tad appalled, because he’s spent half his childhood in the bible belt, and those radical ideas were often frowned upon. His own father also encouraged Dean not to wait for his soulmate, but Dean knows people whispered behind John’s back because of it, called him unnatural and a traitor to his son’s destiny.

Dean clears his throat. “So you and Jess plan to stay together, is what you’re saying? Even if your soulmates show up tomorrow?”

Sam shrugs. “Jess really believes that she’s the master of her own happiness, not her words. And I think I feel the same way. Of course I’m curious about who my soulmate is - I always wonder if I’m going to run into them today or thirty years from now. But, I like Jess. I don’t plan to give what we have up just because someone else is going to call me Sammy.”

Dean nods. “I’m glad you and Jess are happy,” he says, and yet somehow he can’t make himself believe that it’s true.

--- --- ---

Three days and seventeen garages later, Dean climbs into the navy, collared jumpsuit with his name embroidered in black on a rectangular patch of white fabric, and leaves the sleeves long.

Discount Dan’s Auto Repair and Body Services may not have been his first choice, but it’s only a twenty-minute drive in traffic from campus, and they had hired him on the spot. Dean takes a moment to consider his reflection; he looks tired, but content. The once-smooth skin on his face has become weathered, sunkissed and worn, but there’s a softness to the set of his jaw and the point of his chin that he has never had.

It’s the face of a man resigned to his fate, Dean thinks. Proclivities aside, Dean is a hardworking man, and even though Sam can never be his lover, Sam is still his brother. Dean’s protective instinct takes over, and he not only wants to have this job but save money, get promoted, make enough to move him and his brother into an apartment of their own. He wants to make enough that Sam won’t even have to touch his scholarship money, so he can save it and use it when he’s a successful lawyer.

Dean wants to give Sam a home, and he has a lot of lost time to make up for.

Sam’s in the kitchen hunched over a pan of something burning when Dean emerges from the bathroom. Sam’s muttering, his wide back molding and contorting in disgust with every roll of his shoulders. Dean pauses. “Sam?”

Sam spins on his heel, crusted spatula in hand. “Dean! Hey, you ready for your first day on the job?”

Dean glances at the range but can’t see what’s in the pan. “Hell yeah. It’ll be kick-ass to work again.” His nose wrinkles. “You making french toast?”

Sam’s uptight mask melts into a sheepish grin, and he pats the spatula to the charcoal toast on the pan. “Trying to. I wanted to make you breakfast before you left. Mom always made me french toast the first day of school, or when I had a test.”

Dean vaguely remembers Mary’s special breakfasts, but maybe it’s wishful thinking. “Thanks. But I was gonna grab a doughnut or something on my way over.” He closes the gap, lifts his hand, hesitates, then ruffles Sam’s fluffy brown hair. “Save the romantic breakfasts for your girlfriend, yeah?”

“Jess knows what getting to know you means to me,” Sam insists. “She told me she was going to make herself scarce for a while. Y’know, so we can catch up, spend some time together.”

And Sam looks so sincere with his wide, dark eyes, the slight curve to his plump lips. Like an overgrown kid, Dean thinks, still wet behind the ears. Like he still needs his big brother to look out for him.

Dean coughs, looks away. “Nice of her. She’s a real keeper, Sam.”

“I know.”

He can’t force himself to look up, to see what kind of expression Sam has on his face. So, he claps a hand on Sam’s shoulder instead. “Look, I’ve gotta get to work, don’t wanna be late on my first day - but we can hang out tonight, okay? Maybe order in, instead of cook.”

Sam chuckles, and Dean finds himself loving the way it sounds. “Okay. How’s Chinese?”

--- --- ---

Dean dreams that Sam burns to death in the fire.

He’s lying in his crib, an infant, barely born, skin smooth and unmarked when it happens. Dean is four again, extends his grubby fingers to touch the baby, to hold him, because protecting him is Dean’s job.

Dad had said so.

The mobile hanging from the crane turns with the gentle rhythm of the lullaby, and Dean watches as all five of Sam’s tiny fingers wrap around Dean’s thumb. Dean whispers, “Hi, Sammy,” even as the words bloom across the baby’s chest. “I’m going to look after you.”

Flames erupt on the ceiling of the nursery, engulfing the walls, shattering the windows.

Sam is a grown man now, sitting at the edge of a neatly made bed, forearms on his thighs, hands clasped. Dean is no longer a child, and fights to ignore the hot lick of the fire, to take Sam’s hand and pull him from the bed so they can escape together. He can’t move his feet, and the blaze catches on the carpet, eating inward.

“Sammy!” Dean cries, shielding his face from the heat. The words on Dean’s naked wrist glisten in the flamelight.

Sam doesn’t move. “You shouldn’t be here,” he says, and the red and orange race up his legs, across his arms, down his back.

“Dean! Dean !”

Dean’s eyes fly open; the colors fade, giving way to a dull grey sky. It’s the dormitory ceiling, and Sam’s worried face hovers inches from Dean’s own, his baby brother’s hands wound tightly in Dean’s shirt.

“Jesus, are you awake? Are you okay?”

“I’m - I’m awake,” Dean gasps, struggles to sit up. His forehead slams into Sam’s, and they both shout, clapping their palms to the quickly-rising goose eggs. His vision blurs. “Fuck! Sorry, sorry!”

Sam takes Dean’s wrist, covered by nothing but the thin material of his long-sleeved shirt, and tugs his hand away. “Must have been one hell of a nightmare. You scared the shit out of me, man.”

A thumb sweeps gentle and careful over Dean’s forehead; the tender spot smarts.

“You going to be okay?”

The fuzzy shapes begin to clear, and Dean realizes Sam isn’t wearing a shirt. He’s only in a pair of loose, plaid bottoms, feet bare and hair a mess. Sam’s soul words rise and fall with his chest, in time with every breath he takes.

Dean swallows. “Yeah, I’m - it was just a stupid dream.” The couch is uncomfortably hard against his back but Dean leans into it, welcomes it. He can’t start having thoughts like this. He can’t.

Sam exhales, sinks into the sofa next to Dean. Their thighs touch, and Dean doesn’t dare move away. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No thanks. I don’t do ‘talk about it’.”

“I’ve had the same dream, Dean,” Sam says. “It might help.”

Dean stills, stares. “The same dream?”

“Yeah. The one where you walk out the door and never come back, even though I ask you to stay. Only I guess I’m the one leaving in your version.”

From his spot on the couch Dean can just see the electric green time displayed on the kitchen oven, can just see the petal pink of sunrise begin to stir outside the windows. It’s early.

Sam leans back, tilting his head toward the ceiling. “It terrifies me,” he admits. “The thought of you leaving and never coming back. I hate it. When mom died I thought I was all alone. I planned to go see dad at some point, just to meet my father, you know? Meet you, too. But you turn up at my door and we learn that we’re the only family we have left in the whole world. And I feel like we were never separated, like we grew up together. I don’t know how to describe it.”

Dean murmurs, “Sammy.”

“It’s like there’s a part of me that’s been missing, but I only noticed it was gone when you showed up. We never should have grown up without each other. You’re my big brother, Dean, and I feel like, like everything got just a little better when you arrived. Like everything makes a little more sense. So trust me when I say I’m not going anywhere - I promise I’m never going to leave you. Not again.”

It’s just what Dean is afraid of, and also what he didn’t know he needed to hear.

Chapter Text

Sam is a huge freak of nature, and so it only makes sense that he can easily shove Dean’s face into the carpet like he owes him money.

“Gerroff!” Dean hisses into the scratchy fibers, and struggles against his monstrosity of a brother. Sam, however, is stone, and his hips are heavy, pressing into the lower portion of Dean’s back like an anvil.

“Say it,” Sam commands, giant hand pressing the back of Dean’s head farther into the weave.

Dean thinks it smells faintly of spilled liquor and vomit. “I’d rather die.”

“Dean.”

“You’re gonna have to force me.”

Sam’s other hand comes down on Dean’s ribs, thick fingers dancing beneath the layer of his jacket and atop the thin film of his t-shirt. Bubbles twirl under Dean’s skin, and he barks out a laugh. One guffaw turns into two, then four, until his giggles are multiplying exponentially, uncontrolled and unabashed.

It’s all Dean can do to gasp, “God, okay, okay, I’ll say it, stop!”

Sam’s twitchy fingers halt, and he allows Dean enough purchase to roll onto his back so they can look each other in the eyes. Still, Sam sits on Dean’s hips, weighing him down, and doesn’t move. “Go ahead. I’m waiting.”

Dean grits his teeth. “Dean Winchester likes to play with barbies.”

“And?”

“Twilight Sparkle is his favorite pony.”

Sam is satisfied, leans back on his heels, smirks.

“Okay, asshole, my turn,” Dean insists, sitting as far up as Sam’s knees will allow. “Repeat after me: Sam Winchester is a little girl that cries at the end of Space Jam.”

“No. I’m not saying that.”

“I said your dumb barbie shit,” Dean argues, struggling to grip Sam’s shoulders so he can reverse their positions. “Repeat: Sam Winchester is a little girl that cries at the end of-”

But Sam is anything but little, and uses Dean’s own momentum to roll them once, twice, until Dean is underneath him again, gasping for air around his hyena-like wheezes while Sam once again tickles the crap out of him.

“You fucking cheater!” Dean accuses.

Sam only grins as wide as he is tall, and the boys wrestle for the next half hour until they’re both completely out of breath.

--- --- ---

“Do you think aliens are real?”

Dean rips his eyes from the thirty-two-inch television screen just in time to miss the Death Star bursting into a billion pieces. Sam’s already watching Dean with a solemn, dark look in his eyes, lips set in a straight, flat line.

Dean waits for him to say he’s joking, but he doesn’t.

“Um, what?”

“Aliens,” Sam explains, voice just as serious as his eyes. “We can’t be the only ones out there, you know?”

Dean shifts, glances back to the screen, swallows the bitter disappointment of having missed the explosion. “I dunno, Sam. Probably not. Universe is a big place.”

“But why wouldn’t we have run into them yet?” Sam asks. “Our galaxy is, like, kinda new compared to the ones we can see with the Hubble telescope. But those galaxies are light years away, and we see them on a delay, you know? That means that all those old, red-star places we’re looking at are actually ancient, so if life exists over there, wouldn’t they have more technology than us?”

“I don’t follow,” Dean deadpans.

“Someone should have found us by now,” Sam continues. “But they haven’t. So are you sure there are aliens? What if we really are alone?”

“Are you having your mid-life crisis already?”

“Just think about it. Maybe aliens are real, sure. But maybe they aren’t. Maybe we’re the only ones.”

Dean shakes his head, turns his eyes back to the screen and watches the space princess loop medals over people’s heads. “You’re weird, dude.”

“Did you know black holes are going to consume the entire universe one day?” Sam asks. “The universe is expanding at the speed of light, but light can’t escape a black hole. We’re all gonna die one day.”

“Sam. Shut up and put in The Empire Strikes Back .”

He does, but somewhere between Yoda’s ‘There is no try’ and Vader’s ‘I am your father’, Sam falls asleep, and his head rolls onto Dean’s shoulder.

He doesn’t have the heart to wake him.

--- --- ---

“You’re disgusting,” Sam informs him.

Dean makes a point to shove the remaining half of his bacon cheeseburger into his mouth and chew with his lips open.

Sam scoffs and looks away, picking at his salad. He’s already devoured the entirety of the fast-food chain’s apple turnovers, as well as two strawberry shakes and ninety-percent of Dean’s fries, and yet he’s somehow spotless.

Even as Dean notices this, a gooey glob of spread falls to his shirt. He holds it up, cool air hitting his tummy, and licks it clean.

Sam’s pretending not to look, but turns a pale shade of green and shakes his head anyway, kicking Dean’s feet from across the booth.

Dean swallows his mass of patty, cheese, and bread, aims, and swings. The toe of his work boots hits the bottom of Sam’s shoes, and Sam’s knees slam up into the underside of the table, metal clanging as the remaining fries scatter across the floor. At the same moment, the paper cup of ketchup Dean used for dip flies into the air, sails across the table, and lands in Sam’s lap with a splat .

It looks like he’s been stabbed.

Sam looks up. “You’re dead.”

Dean is on his feet and out the door in a nanosecond, but Sam’s thundering footsteps are not far behind.

His capture is inevitable, damn his brother’s monstrous long legs.

Dean lets himself get caught.

--- --- ---

Dean points. “Her.”

Sam slaps his hand down with a hissed “Dean! That’s rude!”

Dean snorts and points again at the slender girl with waist-length black hair and fawn skin. “Come on. What’ll it be?”

Sam is quiet as the girl passes by them on her way to the library, his hand covering his lips, eyes following until she’s too far to hear them. He murmurs behind his palm, “Eight.”

Dean whistles. “You’re a generous man. You haven’t given a single girl anything lower than a seven-point-five.”

“Mom used to say all girls are beautiful. It’s mean to score them in general, but since you’re making me, they’re all pretty.”

A new dame catches Dean’s eye; she’s tall and plump in all the right places, adorable, curled pixie-cut hair dyed the color of lilacs, round glasses pushed up to the bridge of her nose and a mass of classic literature in her umber arms. He points again. “Her.”

Sam doesn’t complain about Dean’s rude methods this time; he follows the direction of his pointer, blinks once, twice. “Eight-point-nine. She’s cute.”

“California girls,” Dean sing-songs.

Sam's heel grinds into Dean's instep as he scoots closer on the bench. “My turn to pick, big guy. And I’m not going to point like some barbarian.”

“Do your worst.”

Sam’s green-or-maybe-brown eyes scan the campus for a worthy subject. While he looks, Dean snakes his arm around Sam’s back and grabs his half-drunk bubble tea. Dean had thought it sounded gross - gummies in his drink? - but they’re kinda fun to chew, and the tea isn’t half bad. He sips as quiet as he can, sneaks the drink back into its position before Sam notices its absence.

The shit-eating grin spreads so slowly across Sam’s face that Dean almost doesn’t notice it. By the time he does, Sam is all teeth. He nods to their left. “There.”

Sam is, of course, referring to the shirtless, ripped, and sweaty brunette passing a soccer ball back and forth with his friends across the grass. The stranger has legs for days and rounded muscles, exposed skin tanned from extended sun-time. Beads of moisture roll down the vast expanse of his hard-planed chest, and his hair is falling out of its knot, strands sticking to his neck. Even from this far away Dean can tell the stranger’s eyes are a bright shade of hazel, focused and sparkling while he kicks the ball to a friend.

Dean licks his lips. “Ten.”

Sam’s head snaps his direction, the shit-eating grin nothing more than a ghost. “You - um, seriously? Like, do you mean it?”

Dean sniffs, leans back on his hands. The gravel of the stone bench bites into his palms. “Yep.”

Sam seems to be suffering from an inability to form words. “I, you - Wow, um, so, so you’re, uh…”

“Equal opportunity,” Dean supplies, and lets his gaze meander back to the way the stranger’s ass ripples in his shorts when he swings his leg. “He’s cute.”

But somehow, their game is over with that.

--- --- ---

“Can I talk to you?”

Dean sees a pair of white pumps and not much else from his position under Mr. Miller’s beat up Nissan, and rolls out into the light, abandoning his tools under the beast. Jess is sorely out of place in her cloud-toned sweater and jean shorts, especially against the backdrop of smudged, dirty, and greasy Discount Dan’s Auto Repair. She’s wearing a frown that doesn’t match the shoes, arms crossed under her chest.

Dean gets to his feet. “Jess, I’m surprised to see you here. Sam dodging your calls or something?”

“No, nothing like that,” she sighs, and glances at Dean’s much-older coworkers, all salt-and-pepper bearded men with dropped jaws and bulging eyes, as if Jess is the first woman they’ve ever seen. Dean hardly blames them - Jess is hot. “Can we talk somewhere else? More private?”

Dean joins her behind the garage a few minutes later, holding out a styrofoam cup of instant coffee that he knows tastes more like dirt than beans, but it’s all he has. She takes it, thanks him, doesn’t drink.

“Do you need to get back to work soon?”

“Nah.” Dean waves her question off. “That car has a lot wrong with it. I’ll be tinkering under the hood for days.”

Jess twists the cup in her palms, bites her lip. “Sam doesn’t know I’m here,” she chirps, and Dean’s brow rises. “I told him I was going to lay low for a while so you two could catch up. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to meet your own brother after twenty years.”

“He told me,” Dean admits.

“Yes, well. We haven’t spoken much for the last few weeks, since you’ve been spending time together. And I’m glad you have, ever since Mary died he’s been so distant and quiet. I think you came at just the right time. Thank you, Dean.”

He hears the sincerity in her words, and finds it hard to digest.

“He texted me yesterday and asked if we could meet up,” Jess continues. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, okay? Sam’s no bigot. He feels like he’s been walking on eggshells for the last few days and I just want you to assure him he’s not offending you.”

“I don’t follow,” Dean says, because he doesn’t.

“Sam didn’t know you were gay,” Jess blurts, “and he feels awful for outing you like it was a joke.”

Dean holds up a finger. “First, I’m not gay. I’m equal opportunity. Second, I know Sam asked me to rate the hot soccer player as a joke to get me to squirm, but I’m not mad about it. It’s just a thing that happened.”

“Oh, thank god,” Jess sighs, eyes fluttering shut. “You have to let him know, Dean. Sam will never admit it but he’s a sensitive person. He feels like he hurt you, and he doesn’t know how to apologize.”

And it makes sense, with the way Dean’s little brother has been acting these last few days since their one-to-ten rating game. He’s been jumpy and quiet, rushing off to class early and coming home late, not meeting Dean’s eyes when they’re in the same room. Dean inhales. “Okay, Jess. I’ll talk to him.”

“It means a lot,” she says. “Sam tries hard to be an ally, but there are some things he’ll never be able to empathize with because he’s straight, you know? He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”

Dean doesn’t say the next thought that comes into his head, which is that Sam cannot be straight, because Dean is his soulmate. Because Sam cannot possibly be straight and Jess thinks he is, she clearly doesn’t know it.

Dean also doesn't say that this means Sam is either unaware of his attraction to men, or hasn’t told a soul.

Dean also doesn’t say that this twists him up inside, like some evil witch is stewing his guts into grog.

Dean wonders what other feelings Sam might be hiding.

--- --- ---

“Hey. Pause for two seconds.”

Sam freezes in his doorway, turns to face Dean like he’s stolen something from him. “Hey, dude,” Sam attempts, but the words come out weak and quiet.

Dean puts a hand on his hip for good measure. “Sam. I know you’re freaking out about our game.”

Sam jumps like he’s been electrocuted.

“It’s fine, man. Really. I’m not mad at you. Like at all.”

Dean can’t look away from the bob of Sam’s adam’s apple when he gulps. “You’re not?”

“I’m not.”

“Cool.” There’s a pause. “I just want you to know, Dean. Mom. She would’ve been fine with it. That is, she never would have loved you any less.”

And Dean believes him, but the knowing tone in Sam’s voice makes him wonder if there is one person Sam has told his secret to, after all.

--- --- ---

Dean doesn’t know if he’s been asleep for five minutes or five hours, but by the time he opens his eyes and adjusts to the darkness, he knows Sam is up.

“Hey,” Dean yawns, lifting his head from the armrest. It’s still dark out, at least, but the glaring television screen is flashing the credits for the movie they began not long ago. Sam glances over, smiles.

“You’re awake. You snore loud.”

“I didn’t realize I was so tired.”

“Do you want me to start the movie over?” Sam asks, fingers ready to grab the remote any moment. “You fell asleep before Gandalf even made it to the Shire.”

“Didn’t you watch the whole thing? I don’t want to make you sit through it again.”

“I’ll sleep this time,” Sam suggests with a shrug. The screen slides into the menu, and the uneasy music begins anew.

Sam is too big for the couch, even with Dean sitting flush on the other side. He’s curled in on himself to allow for more room, but even then the top of Sam’s head grazes the side of Dean’s thigh. Sam’s big, knobby toes press into the opposite armrest.

He watches for a while, but Dean observes as the minutes tick by and Sam’s lids grow heavy. Sam makes it to the end of Bilbo’s birthday party before he nods off, puffs of air audible from his lips.

At this point Dean watches Sam more than the movie. Sam’s chest expands and contracts with every deep breath, his arms winding around his own waist for warmth, his long hair falling into his eyes.

Sam is beautiful, and Dean can’t chase the thought away.

His lashes are thick and spread out like an open paper fan on his cheeks, his expression at peace, content. Dean doesn’t know why he thought Sam so strongly resembles their father now that he’s had a chance to really look at him. Sam has traces of Mary’s soft cheeks and elements of John’s rigid jaw, but a face that’s entirely his own.

It’s like staring at the sun, Dean thinks, and doesn’t look up at the movie even when the wizard falls from the bridge.

All his attention is on Sam, and Dean knows this is dangerous, this is bad.

Sam twitches in his sleep, arching up to adjust his position, and somehow ends up with his head in Dean’s lap. Dean swallows and holds very still. Sam doesn’t wake, but lets out a grumble of contentment.

The idea no sooner forms in Dean’s head than is acted on, before he can second-guess himself. It’s much too late to stop anyway, and Dean winds his hand through the soft locks of Sam’s hair, scratching his blunt nails over Sam’s scalp and smiling when Sam sighs.

His hair feels amazing, like grains of rice through his fingers, silk against his skin.

Sam’s lips curl at the corners, and Dean combs through his hair like he was born for it, as though his hands were made for this. Sam has such pretty eyes, too, colorful and alert when they’re open. He tips his head back when he laughs, or forward when it’s more of a snicker. Sam gets weirdly adorable and nerdy about movies like the one Dean is supposed to be watching (instead of stroking his baby brother’s head), and can talk about the things he likes for hours on end, but always has something new to say.

Dean wonders what Sam’s fingers would feel like, tangled up in his hair. He wonders how it might feel to have Sam tug on the ends and dig his nails into the back of Dean’s neck, if Sam gasping into Dean’s mouth would be as amazing as he thinks it might, if Dean’s name whispered on Sam’s breathless lips would be like fire racing up his spine.

It’s far too late to banish the train of thought; Dean’s light-headed, breathing through his mouth, cock filling out under the weight of Sam’s head, and he relishes when Sam’s chin tilts in and the friction builds. This is more than dangerous, it’s hazardous. Dean can’t let this happen, but he’s powerless to stop it.

He slides off the couch and, by some miracle, Sam remains asleep. Dean paces to the bathroom like a man possessed, stripping his clothes as he goes. He turns the knob of the shower all the way right and climbs under the frigid stream of water without hesitation, willing the ice to lick away his mind, make him blank, nothing but cold.

It only makes Dean wish Sam could warm him up, and he spirals from there.

Sam’s lips close around him, sliding down then up, his mouth hot and wet inside. Sam’s tongue, lapping at Dean’s shaft, licking stripes up every curve and dip.

Dean’s hand is on his dick and imagines Sam bobbing, his green-brown eyes open and looking dutifully up at Dean while he swallows him whole.

Not-Sam slides around Dean’s cock, shooting pin-thin vibrations through his whole body, setting his ice-cold skin aflame, and it’s easy to imagine his hand is Sammy’s mouth with his eyes half-closed. Dean leans his forearm to the shower wall and drops his head against it, panting as he increases the pace, rubbing himself raw, guilt eating him alive.

Dean was not supposed to spend his evening jacking himself in the shower to the mental image of his brother sucking him off.

Fuck, this isn’t how Dean was supposed to react to Sam at all, because it’s wrong, because Sam is his flesh and blood, but in this moment Dean hardly fucking cares.

Dean imagines Sam’s thick eyelashes fluttering shut as he rolls his tongue over the head, lapping like a man dying of thirst, and Dean sinks his teeth into his arm to stop himself from shouting when he comes.

Dean is so fucked.

Chapter Text

Maybe there was no avoiding it, in the end.

Not for Dean.

Things are different now, and he tries his best to stay distant from Sam. But how can he, when Sam wants a brother so badly? How can he, when they discover how alike they are, despite being so different? How can he, when it becomes increasingly obvious with the passage of time that they would have been best friends if they grew up together?

How, in many ways, they’re best friends now?

Dean must distance himself; he has to try. If not for his own sake then for Mary’s. For John’s. Despite trying his best to keep his feelings strictly brotherly, Dean knows that to permanently separate from Sam now would be worse than death, and he wonders if that’s how his parents felt.

Since the night Sam fell asleep on Dean’s lap, Dean has read a lot on soulmates. Specifically, if it’s possible to resist the bond. What he found hasn’t been encouraging; once soulmates meet, being apart is emotionally and physically taxing. The farther the distance, the harder it is. It gives him a new appreciation for couples that work abroad, that have to be away from their soulmates for days or weeks at a time. Or military families, separated for months and months.

But, Dean has spent endless nights thinking, haven’t he and Sam already been separated for all their lives? Sam’s words are proof enough that they have met—the very day Sam was born. Dean tries to view this point objectively; he had no troubles in his childhood or new adulthood thus far, even across the country from his soulmate. By extension, can’t he assume that any other time apart will yield similarly okay-ish results?

And yet, Dean realizes in the dead of one night, it’s a lie.

He’s always felt something was off. Like something was missing. It’s not news to him that his supposed yearning for his mother was, in fact, his body physically reacting to the distance from his soulmate. Still, it truly hits him in this moment, truly occurs to him, that the way he felt growing up was not normal.

There’s nothing normal about a never-ending tightness in his chest, a fist around his heart.

There’s nothing normal about sleeping ten hours and still waking up exhausted.

There’s nothing normal about kissing his girlfriend and feeling sick to his stomach, like he’s about to throw up, even though he wants nothing more than to block it out and enjoy himself. This goes much, much deeper than mistaking the hole in his heart for the wrong family member.

Jon used to take Dean to the urgent care on a monthly basis when he’d faint in the middle of the day. Dean’s had his blood sugar checked a thousand times, fingertips scarred from the constant pricks to rule out diabetes. He’s been tested for auto-immune diseases, hereditary conditions, rare cancers, the works. Every visit to the doctor would end with Jon and the medical professional arguing in hushed tones just beyond the pale privacy curtain.

Dean could never hear what the hospitals had to say, their suggestions drowned out by Jon’s insistent “No, it can’t be that, it can’t be that—there has to be something you can do.”

Dean hasn’t stepped foot inside a doctor’s office since he turned eighteen, and on this quiet night that he can’t sleep a wink, he finally knows why. If he’d been privy to his own medical information, the doctors might have told him he was suffering from soulmate separation.

Dean shoots up on the couch like a bud reaching for sunlight, eyes latching to Sam’s bedroom door through the dark. If Dean has dealt with this all his life, what about Sam? Has he had unexplained pain in his lungs? Random dizziness? Fainting spells? Does he kiss Jess and resist the urge to be sick?

Or, is Dean all alone with this, too?

--- --- ---

“Hey,” Sam says, flopping onto the couch. His body is a tidal wave, and Dean feels the couch tremble under him.

“Hey yourself.”

Sam opens his mouth, pauses, glances at the screen in Dean’s lap. “What’re you looking at?”

“Houses, what’s it look like?”

Sam stiffens. “Are you moving out?”

“Eventually. I can’t live on your sofa forever, I’ve got delicate skin. You don’t love living in this dorm either, right?”

“I—You want me to go with you?”

Dean glances up from the two-bed, two-bath that looks like it’s been made of matchsticks. “Did you think I was gonna leave you here to rot? With your stoner roomie Gage?”

Sam hides his smile too late, coughs to recover, and points to the matchstick home. “We can share a bathroom, you know. And I expect nicer tile in the kitchen.”

“You can pick the house when you’re the one paying for it, Daddy Warbucks.”

Sam laughs, and for a moment, he rests his forehead on Dean’s shoulder. Dean’s heart skips a beat.

For the first time, Dean doesn’t hurt.

--- --- ---

Sam invites Dean out for drinks with himself, Jess, and Theodore, and, being the complete ignoramus that he is, Dean accepts.

How hard can it be, he thinks, watching his soulmate and his girlfriend giggle and hold hands over a few cosmos?

“Dean!” Jess greets, voice warm and welcoming outside the bar. She looks stunning, in a little white sundress and ruby red flats, her lips painted cherry. She pulls Dean into a strong hug, and for a moment with his nose in Jess’s hair, she smells like cotton candy. “I’m so glad you could come tonight!”

Dean clears his throat, tries to ignore the sparkle in Sam’s eyes as he watches them embrace. “Well, the weekend has finally come and I’m ready to relax. Plus, I can’t keep my brother from you for forever, can I?” Dean claps Sam on the back, but the monster doesn’t so much as tremble.

Theodore scratches the beard on his chin and grins at them, motioning to the door. “Let’s grab a table, lady and gents.”

It’s somehow not crowded inside, despite the young weekend evening, and a perfect-sized table for four is crammed into the back, out of the heavy fog of cigarette smoke and general din of drunken college kids. By reflex Dean moves to the farthest chair so he can have a view of the door. He ends up with Jess and Gage on either arm, Sam across the table. Dean had hoped for a reason to avoid staring at him all night.

“How are your classes, guys?” Jess asks.

“I’m doing just fine, but I can’t speak for Gage,” Sam chuckles.

Theodore huffs. “Man, I’m doing better than like, seventy percent of the others in my class. Not my fault you are the curve .”

Dean chuckles, keeps his eyes on the table.

“How about you, Dean? How’s work?”

“Same old, same old. Nothing new here.”

“Dean’s looking at houses,” Sam blurts, and Dean’s head jerks up.

Jess stares at him, surprised. “Oh! I guess you’re planning to stick around Cali for a while?”

The bell on the front door rings as it opens, and a hoard of already drunk girls stumbles inside. Dean licks his lips. “Yeah, for a while. I don’t have anything else going on for me, so I figured I might as well stay here. Where my family is.”

“We’re going to get a two-bed,” Sam embellishes. “Not far off-campus, if we can manage it.”

Dean stands, chair screeching against the floor. “I’m gonna go order. You want anything?”

“Get me whatever you’re having.”

Jess stands, too. “I’ll come with you. Four drinks is too many to carry alone.”

There’s a line at the bar, and Dean wishes he were anywhere else in the world. Every time he looks at Jess’s face he thinks of his movie night with Sam, and the guilt eats him. Jess’s soul words are clearly visible on the palm of her hand, even in the dingy light.

“I want to thank you again for being here,” Jess begins.

“No biggie. I’m here because I want to be.”

She hums. “You say that, and I believe you. But I don’t know if you realize what a big deal it is for Sam to have you here.”

Dean scratches the back of his neck, and the line shortens a step. “I, uh, I have an idea. You’ve made it clear, I think.”

Jess is flexing her fingers, and the words on her palm gleam in the light. “I’m glad, then. Really, it’s so good for him.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

Fuck. Dean blurts the words without a second thought, without evaluating if they’re smart. He knows Jess is too kind to tell him no, and he’s right—she smiles, nods, says, “Sure, Dean.”

He nods to her palm. “Aren’t you ever curious? About who will say that to you? Your words are something else.”

Jess tilts her hand towards the ceiling, staring at the words that mark her destiny. There’s an odd sort of gleam in her eyes, a sadness in her expression. “They are romantic, aren’t they?”

You probably hear this all the time, but you have beautiful eyes.

“Can you keep a secret, Dean?”

He doesn’t like where this is going. “Of course.”

Jess shoves her hand into the pocket of her dress. “I’ve already met him. My soulmate.”

“What?!”

From their table, Sam and Theodore’s heads lift in their direction. Jess grabs Dean’s arm and drags him a step farther up the line as it moves. “Sam doesn’t know, and before you make any assumptions, it doesn’t matter. I love Sam, okay? I’m always going to love Sam. I don’t care what the universe thinks is best for me, because I have to follow my heart. You can’t fault me for who I love, can you?”

“...I guess I can’t.”

How hypocritical would he be, if he demanded she be honest, now?

“But Jess, why haven’t you told him?”

“Sam is…” Jess hesitates. “Sam is noble. To a fault. We agreed when we started dating that if we met our soulmates it wouldn’t affect our relationship at all, but I know him—he’d break up with me for the chance that I could be happier. He would want to give me that option. But Dean, I know it in my heart—Sam makes me happy, and that’s all I need.”

Dean can’t admit he’s blown away. He can’t imagine actively ignoring his soulmate for someone else—even if it’s his lot in life, lately. He licks his lips. “Who is he? Your soulmate?”

They take another step forward, and are almost at the bar. “I met him at the airport. I was waiting for my flight to return to school after winter break, and he walked right up to me, hit me with this cheesy pick-up line. I recognized the words, of course, asked him how long it took him to think that one up. Then his face twisted up all funny, and he said, do you know how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that?”

It’s more than just romantic—it’s straight out of a Hallmark movie. Hell, Dean wants nothing more than for Jess to stay with Sam and even then the story is making his heart pound. “How do you—how didn’t that work out? Doesn’t being away from him hurt?”

Jess sniffs. “It does. Ever since I met him, it’s like there’s a hole in my chest. It’s hard to breathe sometimes, but that’s as far as it goes. He gave me his number, asked me to call him, and I never did. Sam and I were already together.”

“But Jess,” Dean insists, “you realize that because you’ve met, he’s in pain, too? Every moment you two are apart?”

“I know.” She smiles at him then, and it’s beautiful—sad. “But what am I supposed to do? I want Sam.”

And, Dean supposes, he can’t blame her for that.

--- --- ---

By their fifth round, Sam is fucking drunk.

He’s giggling like a schoolgirl, eyes lidded and heavy, movements sluggish and strong. He keeps slapping his hand against Theodore’s back like he’s trying to squash a bug, and Dean resists the urge to roll his eyes for the nth time.

“Next time I’m monitoring your intake,” Dean tells him, to which Sam blows an honest-to-god raspberry.

“Whatever, dude, it’s Saturday! I finished my homework and nothing’s left to do!”

He holds the ‘o’ in ‘nothing’ far too long. Dean shakes his head. “Jesus, you had to take after dad for this too, huh?”

Jess has stuck to low-percentage cocktails all evening—she’s tipsy, but nowhere near the level her boyfriend is. She’s even prettier with her cheeks flushed from the heat, her smile worn a little looser on her lips. “Dean, maybe you should take Sam home. I’m worried he’ll be sick all over the table.”

Theodore is, strangely, stone-cold sober. Dean hasn’t a clue why—he’s drunk just as much as Sam, maybe more. He’s suspicious of Theodore’s tolerance, but with his own head a little foggy and buzzed, it’s difficult to examine.

“I’ll take Jess back,” Theodore offers. “I checked the breathalyzer the last time I went to the bathroom and I’m totally good, but you two will have to walk, my dudes. You’re both wobbly.”

“Gage,” Sam gasps, slapping his roommates back yet again, “thanks! You’re a real pal, man—g’night, Jess.”

Jess kisses Sam on the cheek. “Night, baby.”

She’s left a print of her lips on Sam’s skin, and it’s all Dean can see in the dark.

They split, Gage driving Jess to her off-campus apartment, Dean working through his own muddied brain to drag Sam back to the dorm.

“At least it’s walking distance.” It might be the eleventh time he’s said it, but Sam laughs with as much gusto as the first. Dean wrestles for the keys in his jeans with Sam’s massive body crushing him to the carpeted hallway. He grunts, hoisting Sam up by the waist, and manages to kick the door wide enough that they can escape it closing on their toes. “Come on, big guy,” Dean encourages, helping Sam to his room. “You can sleep this off in just a minute.”

“Not tired.”

“Bull, dude.”

“Not.”

Dean gets Sam’s bedroom door open by some miracle, and is contemplating dumping his brother on the bed and leaving when Sam’s fingers grip his wrist, dragging him down to the softness of the comforter. They collapse into the mattress, a heap of twisted limbs and mingled breath.

Dean groans. “Come on, dude, you can’t sleep in your street clothes.”

Sam giggles, flat on his back, legs bent at the corner of the bed. Dean hoists himself to his knees, reaching for the buttons on Sam’s fly.

He stops dead.

“What’re you waiting for?”

Sam stares at him, green-blue eyes holding his gaze. Dean only sees the lipstick on Sam’s cheek.

Dean swallows, says, “I’m never taking care of you when you’re piss drunk again, got it?” and swiftly undoes Sam’s trousers. It’s easier to strip Sam down to his boxers with Sam’s help—lifted hips, arms dutifully above his head as Dean yanks off his shirt—and Dean haphazardly tosses the cover over Sam’s almost-naked body, shielding himself from the incredible shape Sam's kept it in. Dean can’t exactly lie to himself when the evidence is available for all to see: Sam is hot.

Objectively.

“If you need to throw up in the middle of the night, go to the bathroom, okay?” Dean takes a step back.

Sam springs from the bed, wide-eyed, worried glaze across his face. “No, don’t—!”

Dean stares.

“Don’t go. Stay here.”

“Sammy, I’m just going to the couch.”

“No.” He insists with such fervor, Dean’s heart twinges. Sam’s fingers lace between Dean’s. “I can’t lose you a second time.”

It’s how Dean finds himself lying next to his almost-naked brother, words caught in his throat, their hands palm-to-palm.

“I’m so afraid, Dean,” Sam says, and Dean is startled to see tears drip from his nose onto the pillow. “I’m so afraid one day I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone. It—it hurts when you’re not around. I think—I think it’s always hurt.”

Water swims in Dean’s vision, and he blinks it away.

“We should have grown up together,” Sam whispers. “We should have. I love you, Dean. I love you, you're my brother, and that’s why, that’s why—please, stay here. I can’t lose you a second time.”

But, Sam’s eyes slide shut, his breath mellows, and Dean knows he won’t remember any of this in the morning. He knows, so he leans forward and places his lips to the mark on Sam’s cheek, willing it to disappear when he pulls back. It doesn’t, so he tries again.

It’s faded, but only just.

“I’m not going anywhere, Sammy,” Dean murmurs, surprised at the ferocity in his tone. “I’m staying right here.”

Sam sighs. “Love you, bro.”

And damn it all, Dean’s no fool. If he had to pinpoint the moment he fell in love with Sam—real, romantic love—this is it.

Maybe there was no avoiding it, in the end.