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Even with avoiding the warmer places of the United States when he could, Dean stared at the palm tree in front of his parked car with an unbefitting amount of dread. He knew he couldn’t put it off too much longer—and he didn’t wish to—but he hadn’t seen Sammy in nearly ten years. That fact, combined with the ever-diminishing distance to his little brother, came with such a cocktail of tumultuous emotions that the ever-stoic hunter couldn’t even begin to untangle them.
Ever since their dad had disappeared, Dean had taken on a slew of independent cases. It wasn’t for a couple weeks, however, when he finally acknowledged the direction all those cases were taking him. He started off in Madison with a nasty salt and burn involving a vengeful butcher’s wife and a meat hook, followed by the rogue werewolf in Kansas City, then the water spirit of Salt Lake City, and finally a false alarm in Palo Alto that Dean would never admit was just a cheap excuse to get closer to Stanford University.
So here he sat in his ’67 Chevy Impala, the last protection between him and the World Sammy Occupied, and there was a sunny, twenty foot palm tree mocking him with tropical cheerfulness three yards in front of the headlights, uncaring of Dean’s writhing stomach and racing heart.
The only reason he even knew his brother was here was his father—ironically enough. He had mentioned in passing, just the once, a year ago that Sam was in his third year of college studying pre-law when Dean was helping him into bed after a two day bender. Dean had desperately wanted to hear more—wanted to know how he gained this information—but his dad had passed out by the time Dean had recovered from hearing of his never-mentioned little brother and worked up the nerve to ask more. In the morning, after John Winchester had mostly recovered and taken a few aspirin, Dean’s bravery had fled even if his yearning to hear more had not.
Now, with John’s absence, it was as though Dean’s buffer had disappeared. His self-control when it came to his brother was always low, but, without anyone there to police him, Dean couldn’t contain the near-magnetism his heart and soul had always felt towards Sammy.
Sammy. Dean inhaled slowly, shaky. Exhaled. He peeled his fingers from the death grip they had on the steering wheel and flexed his fingers. He had utilized a library computer a town over to look up Sammy’s address, and now he sat parked three houses down, too chicken to park any nearer in case Sammy happened to be home, looking out the window. The Impala was about as inconspicuous as a neon sign.
Dean couldn’t help but remember the last time he had seen his little brother, driving away in the passenger seat of Bobby’s truck, tears streaming down his face as he stared back at Dean through the window until they turned the corner and vanished from sight. Dean could remember the feeling clearly to this day—it was one of the most vivid memories he had—how his stomach felt like it had twisted itself up and vanished, leaving him hollow and immovable, at least until half an hour had passed. Then the rage set in and Dean would have killed his father had he been strong enough. As it was, John Winchester, ex-marine and the bane of Dean’s existence, managed to hold him down until all the rage and fight left him, leaving behind a shell of a lost boy—for who was he without Sammy?
God, he had been so stupid, looking back. So full of fantastical teenage emotions and hormones he couldn’t control, so in love that he felt like he was dying every time Sammy so much as smiled at him.
And now he was back to square one, where John Winchester had kept him from for so long. Dean got out of the car, the door closing behind him finally and felt elation building inside his chest with a sickening rapidity.
He felt as though in a dream until his feet stood on the brown welcome mat on the porch of the bluest house on the street. He was going to wait until night fall to sneak in—more his style—but Dean was aware that he didn’t know his brother anymore—his Sammy might not be his Sammy at all. The last thing he wanted to do was scare him.
Noticing the lack of doorbell, Dean used the golden knocker on the door, rapping it five times, not sure he’d be able to rap it again with the way his nerves were right now.
He barely noticed the shuffling behind the door until it opened, blood rushing loudly in his ears. The door swung around to reveal a man at least three inches taller than Dean, with a broad chest and dressed in khaki shorts and a plaid button-up whose sleeves were rolled up on each side to reveal strong, tan forearms. It was all so foreign to Dean until he noticed the floppy, brown hair and soft hazel eyes that he would never forget, not in a million years, not now even devoid of tears.
Dean opened his mouth to say something—anything—but his voice had died along with all coherent thought, because this was Sammy, no doubt, and Dean had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.
It was low and hoarse, when Dean heard Sammy’s voice for the first time in a decade. “Dean.”
1995
“God, Dean, you’re so annoying.” Sammy said this with a twitch in the corner of his mouth, nose shoved up in some novel that he had to read for school, and Dean knew he wasn’t being serious. Sammy loved it when Dean couldn’t seem to pay attention to anything but him—which was most of the time these days—basked in the affection and thrived in the focused energy. For this reason, Dean persisted, shoving his head into his brother’s lap more insistently.
“C’mon, Sammy, just a little head rub. Put the book down, you can read it later.”
They were sprawled out on the motel bed, their father away on a hunt, going on five days now. These sorts of absences always made them bold, with a feeling that they were in a golden bubble of intimacy that nothing could breach. It made them stupid with each other—for Dean, it felt like an addiction to Sammy, his world, little brother, best friend, and everything that mattered.
“When will later be? I know you—later is just something you say to make me do what you want to do.”
Sammy wasn’t wrong, but Dean just hummed, rolling over onto his stomach so he was half-smothering Sammy’s legs and rubbed his forehead against Sammy’s soft tummy and wrapped his arms around his slim torso. Dean hummed again, contentedly breathing in the familiar scent, and Sammy sighed. Dean heard him set the book down on the side table but didn’t say anything, just snuffled Sammy’s shirt up with his nose to press a chaste kiss to bare skin and waited in anticipation for Sammy’s soft touch.
He didn’t disappoint, and Dean groaned in pleasure when Sammy started massaging his head. “You’re an animal.”
“Only for you, baby,” Dean said, muffled against Sammy’s bare stomach. Dean pressed a few more kisses in thanks to Sammy’s belly, then rested his ear down so he could gaze up at his baby brother.
“That makes me feel special—no werewolf or ghoul you’d rather be smothering right now?”
Dean smiled—couldn’t help it these days, ever since he and Sammy started this whole thing he felt like he was on a permanent high—“Mmm. . .it’s a full moon, so it probably wouldn’t be very safe to lay like this with a werewolf—I’d rather keep the skin on my head—and ghouls are slimy—you’re much drier.”
Sammy didn’t say anything, just smiled and ran his hands through Dean’s cropped hair, and Dean looked back at his baby brother in the dim motel light, and Dean felt so much love for him it was like a drug, like a physical manifestation pumping through his blood.
Dean had always loved Sammy, had always looked out for him, but their physical relationship didn’t begin until Sammy was eleven. It had mostly been curiosity, the first few times they kissed and touched, but with higher frequency came the inability to deny what Dean had frantically been trying. And Sammy’s eager participation in the process made it hard for Dean to ignore what was happening, which was what he attempted to do for a week or two after their first kiss. It hadn’t worked.
Sammy was inevitable. Sammy was like gravity. Sammy was like a hurtling meteor to Earth and Dean was the crater that caught him. Dean wasn’t anything until there was Sammy.
All these thoughts spinning in his head, Dean couldn’t help but lean up to blanket Sammy with his body, kiss his baby brother with all he had, open mouthed, with wild sweeps of tongue, trying to swallow as much as Sammy’s spit as he could. Dean would fuse his brother permanently to him if that were physically possible, drink down all of his essence until Dean’s heart beat permanently with his brother’s name.
“Dean,” Sammy panted against Dean’s lips. Moist, sticky breath.
“What is it, baby?”
Sammy didn’t answer just lifted up his hips to press his hard-on against Dean’s stomach. “Yeah?” Dean asked. “You need me, baby? You want me to take care of you?” Because, yeah, that was Dean’s job, in all senses of the word. He took care of Sammy—the only thing that ever truly belonged to him. His person. He made sure he had enough to eat and took showers and felt safe and protected at night and was happy. And he damned well would take care of this, too.
Sammy whined low in his throat, the way that always made him seem much younger than his twelve years but always managed to pull at Dean’s heart strings. Sammy wrapped his arms high up on Dean’s neck and clung, nuzzling his face gently against Dean, and Dean was lost. He lay them down so he was almost on his side, keeping him and Sammy wrapped together like shoelaces. He then carefully eased Sammy’s sweatpants down over his erection, feeling down with his hand to rub his palm against the supple shaft, small just like Sammy, but so, so perfect.
“Dean,” Sammy said again, this time his voice high with pleasure.
“Doing okay, baby? You gonna let me do this for you?” Sammy groaned into Dean’s neck, clung harder, as Dean curled his palm and fingers around his erection, tugging on the velvet skin gently, whispering words of devotion, of worship to his little brother, his idol. “You belong to me, Sammy—you’ll always have me to take care of you. Never leave you. I love you so much, die without you, God, baby, you’re perfect for me, never wanna be apart—”
Sammy came all over Dean’s fingers, quietly panting against his neck, and Dean could feel little tears escape Sammy’s eyes, penis oozing slick as Dean slowly finished jacking him off, and Dean felt like he was part of a holy ritual, like he was being baptized by Sammy—eyes, spit, come, all over Dean, cleansing him of anything that wasn’t his little brother.
“Love you, Dean,” Sammy sighed into Dean’s neck, arms now lax around Dean, boneless with orgasm. “You’re the best.”
Dean opened his mouth to firmly agree with this assessment, but that was when the nightmare began—the motel door flung open to reveal John Winchester, who, after assessing the scene for a few horrifying heartbeats—Dean, half on-top of Sammy, whose wet, limp dick still lay cradled in Dean’s fist and who had his shirt and pants rucked halfway off—stormed over to Dean, who just a second ago such happiness it was unreal, and yanked him off his little brother and threw him hard against the dresser, the TV atop it rattling precariously.
The next few minutes were all a blur of fists and kicks, and Sammy screaming, and pain, and then suddenly it stopped. Dean came to a couple hours later on one of the motel beds, John Winchester sitting with his head in his hands in the corner chair and Sammy curled up in a ball on the other bed, tear-streaked face staring back at Dean with a look of such grief that Dean wanted to die.
Dean didn’t realize his dad had noticed he was awake until he spoke. “Bobby will be here within the hour.”
It took a second for Dean to comprehend these words. “Wh—what—”
“Sam is going to live with him now.” John didn’t look up when saying these horrible, awful words that couldn’t be true. “You’ll stay with me, Dean.” He sighed, and there was a long pause. “Maybe this is all my fault—leave you boys alone too much. God.” Dean couldn’t remember a time he saw his dad cry, but right now he heard the tears in his voice. “This can’t go on.”
“B—but—Sammy—I can’t—” Dean needed to tell John that this wasn’t acceptable—this wasn’t the way this was supposed to be—Sammy was his boy, his soul mate. He couldn’t find the words, and John wasn’t going to let him.
“You’ll never see Sam again if I have any say in it,” John said, and Dean’s voice left him. He turned to look back at Sammy, and he felt like the world was ending.
Present
“Dean.”
Dean’s mouth just hung there, unmoving, paralyzed.
“Oh my god, is it really you?” Dean couldn’t answer, in awe of the man who used to be his baby, and suddenly there were arms around him and that familiar Sammy-scent, and Dean shuddered, his arms coming up to clutch at his little brother who wasn’t so little anymore.
“It’s me, Sammy, god, baby, it’s me, I’m sorry—so fucking sorry—never thought I’d see you again.”
The words poured out of Dean, unplanned but not untrue.
Dean started crying for the first time since that horrible first year of no-Sammy, and he could tell Sammy was, too, and that empty space in his stomach suddenly felt fuller and hollower than ever, but Sammy was here, and so was Dean, and that was all that mattered.
On one not so ordinary day in Palo Alto, a palm tree spread its shadow onto Sammy and Dean, shrouding them from sunlight.