Archive of Our Own

PROLOGUE

So Dean is the asshole of the family. And mostly he’s okay with that. Except when he isn’t. Like right now.

“It’s me, man. Call me.” He drops the phone onto the seat next to him and guns his baby just that little bit harder. Her engine responds as always, and she leaps forward on the road.

He’s pissed off that Sam isn’t answering his calls, but he mostly understands why not. He just hopes that he can get to his brother in time. Before the shit really hits the fan.

The ghost sitting in the back seat laughs a little. Dean Winchester is never going to be free of her.

******
SOMEWHERE IN KANSAS

Sam ignores the calls, the voicemails. He doesn’t want to talk to Dean. Sam hasn’t seen Dean since Amelia’s death, and he doesn’t know that there is anything left for them to say. They’ve hurt each other so much over the years, love and lies, duty and deception all mixed up in the cesspool that is Winchester.

Not that Amelia’s death was Dean’s fault. No, that was the curse. The one that Dad had left as his legacy. The one they’d only found out about after Bobby had died. Yet another thing Dad had neglected to tell them.

Although the curse does explain all the crap that has always come their way. It had seemed like bad luck was part of everything they did. And then, when they’d realised that all the shit that had happened to them over the years was thanks to John, the last of Dean’s illusions about their father had shattered. The fallout hadn’t been pretty.

Sam wonders if John Winchester had ever conceived of a world without demons. The world he and Dean live in now. The world the Winchesters had made, even if the rest of mankind doesn’t know it.

The phone rings again. Sam sighs. Dean hasn’t lost his ability to irritate Sam on every level. Even when he hasn’t seen him in four years. He knows that if he doesn’t answer it, Dean will just carry on calling.

“What do you want, Dean?” he asks as he picks up on the fourth ring.

“I’ve done what you asked, stayed away.” Dean’s voice is angry but there’s an undercurrent of something else.

“So why are you calling?” Sam keeps his voice even, not allowing the emotion rushing through him at the sound of his brother’s voice to betray him.

“I promised I’d only call if it was an emergency,” Dean says.

Sam waits.

“I don’t know what to do.” Dean sounds small then, defeated. And it’s so not like Dean that Sam gets the first sense of panic.

“Where are you?” he asks instead.

“Kentucky,” Dean tells him.

There’s a crackling on the line, and for a moment, Sam feels like he’s losing Dean, the sound of hissing beating at his ear. “What was that?” he asks.

Dean’s voice is hoarse, jagged with something that sounds like pain. “I can’t talk about it over the phone, but I’m in deep shit.”

Sam ignores the small twist of pain that Dean would rather have not asked him for help. “Come on over then,” he says. “The beer will be cold by the time you get here.”

******

Dean remembers the first time he let Sam down. The day he let him leave for Stanford, taking his father’s side.

He remembers every time since then. It seems like the only thing Dean has ever done well has been letting Sam down. Taking care of his little brother hasn’t been a successful job at all. Not since Sam left for Stanford anyway.

The last time Dean failed Sam, Amelia had died. Dean reckons that staying as far away from Sam as possible is the best thing for him. At least he can’t do any more damage.

But he can’t let this go. He needs Sam now, and it sucks that Sam is the only hunter within driving distance, even if he’s been out of the game for four years.

He can almost hear her laughter beneath the heavy beat of Led Zepplin’s “Kashmir”. He ignores her, not prepared to let her know just how fucking terrified he is.

She knows anyway.

******

It’s four AM when Dean pulls into the driveway of the big house. He looks up at the white-washed clapboard and smiles. Sam has his home now.

The front door opens, almost as though Sam has been on the lookout for him, and Dean blinks when he sees just how much Sam has changed in the last four years.

“Jeez, Sammy, did you grow bigger? Aren’t those spurts supposed to stop at eighteen?” He can’t help himself. Sam seems taller, he’s definitely broader, and the sharp cut of his cheekbones is softer now, as good food and good living have filled them in.

“Come in, Dean,” Sam stays in the doorway, the soft light of the porch catching the gold in his hair. It looks almost like a halo.

Dean is ruthless about shoving that memory down. Cas is gone, has been gone for more than five years now. He can’t think about him without something sitting in his throat, trying to choke him.

He climbs out of the car and can feel the icy cold of the ghost slide out behind him.

“I’ve got company,” he tells Sam.

His brother looks behind him, missing the slight movement of the grass as the bitch heads for him.

“No,” Dean tells her. “You don’t go near him, y’hear?” He feels a slide of cold down the side of his cheek, and he knows that she’s touching him. She believes she has the right.

“Don’t see anyone with you,” Sam says, but his eyes are hard and narrow on him.

“Ghost,” Dean explains. Sam takes a step back, behind the line of the doorway. Dean drops his gaze and smiles when he sees the thick and solid line of rock salt melted into the floorboards. “Now that’s an awesome idea,” he says.

Sam holds the door open. “Ghost won’t be able to come in.”

Dean takes a step towards Sam and feels her fingers dig into the meat of his shoulder. She isn’t happy about him leaving her behind. He hisses in pain. “Get off me, bitch.” He walk-staggers under her weight, his gaze fixed on the only true north he’s ever known.

Sam’s hand grabs his arm as he reaches the top of the steps. The ghost bitch isn’t going down without a fight though, and Dean feels the skin of his shoulder rip open. He sucks in a breath and takes another step, one more towards Sam.

Sam mutters something in Latin that makes her shriek and release Dean. Sam yanks hard and then Dean is over the threshold, in Sam’s home, in Sam’s arms.

“You asshole,” Sam mutters, shoving Dean back and away from him. “You should’ve told me about her when you called.”

Dean rolls his shoulder, wincing when he feels the mess she’s left behind. “Couldn’t,” he tells Sam. “She’s smart. She’d have figured out something if she’d known who you are and why I was heading for you.”

“Tell me,” Sam pushes at Dean, herding him towards a brightly lit kitchen. He motions to a chair and Dean falls into it, grateful for the small respite Sam’s heavily-warded home is giving him.

“Mother of a witch I put down in Louisville,” Dean says and tries to shrug off his jacket. It hurts like a motherfucker, and he can’t hide the sharp sound he makes. The bitch did some real damage this time.

“Let me see,” Sam says, moving behind him to help him take off the heavy brown leather.

Dean stills as soon as he feels Sam’s hands on him. It’s been a long time since his brother has touched him. He realizes that this is what he’s been missing. Sam. His careful hands. His intense face. Sam.

Sam pulls off Dean’s shirt too, and Dean hisses again as the fabric slides over his shoulder. “Shit, Dean!” Sam’s tone is shocked. “She’s so strong that she can make you bleed like this?”

Dean sits there in Sam’s golden bright kitchen and wonders just how to explain what has happened. “I…” He lifts his good arm and rubs his eyes. “The daughter, I slept with her.”

Sam’s laugh is short and not pleasant. “Of course you did, you asshole.”

“Hey,” Dean’s gaze snaps up to meet Sam’s. “You told me to get the hell away from you. You don’t get to judge me.” His voice is hard and angry because that’s just how he feels.

“Dean…” Sam’s face twists. “I never meant…”

Dean shakes his head. “Yeah, you did, Sam.” He holds up his hand when Sam starts to speak again. “And I did it. Because that’s what you wanted. I did it even though it felt like someone had cut out my heart.” Dean’s always hated talking about feelings and shit, but he reckons that Sam needs to know what is coming his way.

“You told me to fuck off, and I did. I’ve been doing my job these past four years while you’ve been hiding out here in Kansas, pretending to live an ordinary life. You don’t get to judge anything I’ve done since then.” Dean holds Sam’s gaze, and finally Sam nods.

“Fair enough.” Sam steps away and goes to a cupboard, pulls out a bottle of antiseptic lotion and some gauze. “But you came to me. Why?”

And this is the part that Dean really doesn’t want to have to explain.

******

Sam knows when Dean is trying to avoid talking about something. If there were a Master’s degree in Dean non-speak, then Sam has it. In Dean-speak, he’s got a doctorate.

“I’m not the only hunter between Kentucky and Kansas,” Sam says. And technically, yeah, he’s not really a hunter any more. But the lessons drummed into him by John Winchester haven’t really ever left him.

Dean’s eyes slide off to the left, and Sam knows he’s going to lie. Again. “No, Dean.” His voice is firm. “Tell me the fucking truth or get out of my house.”

Dean takes a breath. It gusts out of him in frustrated anger. “The witch - the daughter, not the ghost bitch outside - she cursed me.”

“Wow, color me surprised,” Sam murmurs, and they share a quick grin. This is, after all, what they know – knew - best.

“See, Mommy dearest,” Dean waves a hand in the general direction of the front yard, “is not just any normal ghost.”

Sam waits, focusing on cleaning out the gouges made in Dean’s shoulder. Dean is going to tell this in his time, and nothing Sam can say or do will make him go any faster.

“She’s a vengeance demon who was killed before she could realize her vengeance.” Dean scowls and flinches when Sam digs a little deeper into one of the slices on his skin.

“So she’s got double the strength of a normal spirit that has refused to pass.” Sam is satisfied that the wounds are clean enough and starts taping the gauze over them.

Dean nods and flinches again when Sam presses a little too hard. “How about you be a little less rough there, Sammy?” he asks.

Sam keeps his expression blank. “You turn into a princess these past four years?” he snaps back. “Can’t take a little pain?”

Dean looks at him and Sam holds his gaze. It’s been a long time since his big brother made him look away. “Since when did you become such a bitch?” he asks instead.

“Since my wife died.” Sam doesn’t hold back anymore and Dean almost rears back as though Sam has actually hit him.

“Shit, Sam, I’m…” Dean’s eyes are a little glassy now, whether with the pain from his shoulder or the hurt that Sam’s words have inflicted. He forgets sometimes, that Sam is a widower and that he has other sorrows besides the ones they share.

“So, you salted and burned her bones?” Sam changes the subject and packs his medical supplies away. He keeps his back to Dean as he goes to grab a couple of beers from the fridge, popping the tops before he turns around again.

Dean’s masked whatever emotion Sam’s statement had drummed up, and it’s all attitude on his face now. “Of course,” he says and nods his thanks when Sam hands him the beer. “Burned the witch’s house down, too.” He sounds a little proud of himself. “The witch and the bitch.” He grins, but it fades quickly.

“Why didn’t it work?” Sam sits now, facing Dean from the opposite side of the table. It’s too easy to slip back into this mode. Into hunting and researching and Dean.

“Apparently, the curse that the witch attached to her mother negates the salt and burn.” Dean shrugs and swallows down half the beer. Sam does not watch the line of his throat as he drinks.

“So, you have to break the curse and then she fucks off out of here?”

Dean nods.

“Okay then, tell me about the curse.”

Sam watches color bloom on Dean’s cheeks and knows that this is why Dean is here. Dean came to Sam because Sam is the only person Dean can trust to help break the curse and not fuck him over.

Sam waits.

******

Dean concentrates on his beer bottle for a moment. He’s sure the answer to Sam’s question isn’t located anywhere in the brew, but he can’t bring himself to actually say the words that will tell Sam what sort of fucked-up mess he’s got himself into this time.

“Dean?” Sam sighs. “Fine, you don’t want to talk about it yet.” He stands up, and Dean has to look up, way up the length of Sam’s body, to meet Sam’s gaze. “The spare room is three doors down. The bed is made up, and the shower is the second door on the left.”

Sam rubs his eyes, and Dean realizes that it’s late, early, whatever, and Sam probably has a job that he needs to be getting up for really soon. “You got to be at work tomorrow?” he asks.

Sam shakes his head. “I work from home.” He looks down at Dean. “I’ve been using the things I learned while being a hunter.”

Dean frowns. “Doing?” He knows he’s avoiding the issue at hand, but he can’t think of anything Sam could use a hunter’s skills for in real life.

“Garth couldn’t handle all of the queries coming through, so he started passing some of them over to me.” Sam stretches, and Dean doesn’t look at the sleek, soft skin exposed when his t-shirt slides up.

“So you never actually left the game?” Dean can’t believe this. “All this time and you’ve been in contact with hunters across…” He can’t finish the sentence. He feels angry and betrayed. By Garth. By Sam. By everyone.

“It doesn’t pay the bills but it gave me an idea,” Sam shrugs and drops their empty bottles in a recycling bin. “Anyway, I wrote some thoughts down, sent it off to an agent, and next thing I know, I’m a published horror writer.” His smile is self-deprecating. “And a pretty rich one now.”

Dean stares at Sam. “You write?”

Sam meets his gaze steadily. “All the shit we’ve seen over the years, Dean? The stuff of nightmares. I just put it on paper as a fictional account, and it seems that people love the idea of things that go bump in the night.”

Dean is still trying to wrap his mind around it. “You write?” he says again, like some kind of dumb parrot.

“I write,” Sam affirms. “I’m going to bed.” His eyes are harder now. “And Dean?” Dean meets his gaze. “We will talk about this in the morning.”

Dean nods and watches Sam head out of the kitchen. He doesn’t move until he hears the click of a distant door closing. A breath he didn’t know he was holding whooshes out of him. Seeing Sam again was harder than he thought it would be.

He’s glad that he came here, has seen Sam. His brainiac baby brother has made a life here. Dean’s both mad and glad that Sam hasn’t left the family business completely. But at least he’s not in danger anymore. And Sam seems happy. That’s all Dean has ever wanted for Sam.

Telling Sam what he needs to break the curse is going to be impossible.

Dean doesn’t have a choice though. He has to at least give Sam the option to refuse.

And then Dean will be okay to die.

******

Sam doesn’t sleep again. He listens to the sound of his brother moving from the kitchen to the spare room and back out to the bathroom.

It makes his skin feel hot and tight when he hears the shower go on and the normal sounds of Dean getting himself clean. It feels like it was just yesterday, the crappy motel room, Dean in the shower, talking to him through the open door.

Sam puts an arm over his eyes. That has always been part of the problem with them. There has never been a clear line between what’s appropriate or not between them.

The times he lay listening to Dean fucking a woman in the bed next to his. The times he knew Dean was listening when he fucked into his fist and moaned his release. The times Dean had been in the shower and Sam would be brushing his teeth, both naked and unaware that there was anything not normal about them.

Until Amelia. He’d given her up to hunt with Dean. He’d been ready to be with Dean until the day he died. But then the trials. The demon tablet, the angel tablet, and then Chuck coming back and taking everything with him so that the only things left to hunt were the wendigos and vampires and werewolves. The easy things.

Dean had not taken it well. He’d watched Sam go through the demon trials and then taken on the angel trials himself. They’d lost Cas and Kevin and everyone else that meant anything to them. Except for each other.

Sam had asked Dean to stop hunting. To find a place and settle down. Dean had run. And Sam had let him.

Dean kept coming back to Sam. He made sure that Sam saw him or heard from him at least once a month. It was as much for Dean as it was for Sam. But once he found out that Sam had moved back in with Amelia and that they were planning on getting married, the visits grew fewer, more strained, more angry.

He came to Sam’s wedding. Stood beside him in a suit that made him look like he’d stepped off the pages of GQ Magazine. He’d brought Charlie as his date, and Sam hated the pity he saw in her eyes when she looked at him.

“She’s a nice lady,” Charlie said when they managed to grab a few moments alone at the reception.

“She is,” Sam agreed.

“She’s not me, but if you had to settle for a red-head…” Charlie trailed off. “He misses you.”

Sam shook his head. “Don’t.”

Charlie looked at him. “No matter what shit has gone down, he needs you, Sam, and you’re just never there.”

“I don’t want that life for me anymore,” Sam told her. He pointed to where Amelia was laughing and dancing with her father. “This is what I want. Right there.”

“Liar,” Charlie whispered, and she was gone. They left before Sam and Amelia left. Dean slipped out of the room like a pale ghost without saying goodbye. Sam found a box on his car seat when he and Amelia headed out for their honeymoon. He didn’t want to open it, but Amelia was looking at him curiously, so he did.

It was a note and two silver chains, the links all shaped in Enochian sigils, and Sam felt something clench and break open inside him.

“What is it?” Amelia asked, leaning against him, all soft skin and sweet-smelling hair.

“It’s our gift, from Dean,” Sam whispered and handed her one of the chains.

She looked at it carefully and then offered it to him to help her put it on. “Pretty, but weird looking,” she said as she touched it.

“It’s for protection,” Sam told her and put his on. Then he opened the note.

Hey, Sammy, got a friend to make these for you and your lady. Keep ‘em on, they’ll keep you safe when I’m not around. Take care of yourselves. Dean.

Sam hadn’t seen Dean for almost six months, and then it had only been a brief encounter at Charlie’s wedding to Clara. They’d nodded to each other, and Sam had stifled a laugh at Dean standing at Charlie’s side as her ‘man of honor’.

“You good, Sammy?” Dean had asked, eyes sliding to where Amelia was talking to Charlie.

“Yeah, I’m good, Dean.” Sam wouldn’t have said anything else. The cancer that was eating away at Amelia wasn’t anything Dean could help him with. The protective chains Dean had given them sure hadn’t stopped the disease from rampaging through her body.

“Good.” Dean had clapped a hand on Sam’s shoulder, quick, impersonal. “See you around.”

And that had been the last time Sam had seen Dean, until he was burying Amelia. It was a memory that Sam wasn’t proud of. Dean had come to support him. But Sam didn’t want support. He wanted his wife back. He’d pushed Dean away with hands and words, and he could never take that back.

And Dean had stayed away.

Sam closes his eyes when he hears the shower go off. He isn’t thinking about Dean anymore tonight, this morning. He needs to get some sleep if he’s going to drag the truth out of his brother later.

Dean’s being cagey about the curse which tells Sam that it’s not something Dean wants to talk about.

Too bad. If Dean didn’t want to talk then he shouldn’t have shown up on Sam’s doorstep at four in the morning.

******

Dean falls asleep as soon as his head touches the pillow. It’s the first time in days that he’s able to sleep. The bitch normally keeps him awake with touches and claws and whispers in the dark.

When he opens his eyes again, it’s full light outside and he feels like a new man. He hadn’t realized how much the presence of the ghost has weighed him down.

He stretches in the bed, relishing in the simple comfort of a feather pillow and a warm eiderdown.

There’s a knock at his door, and Sam pokes his head in. “Fresh coffee in the kitchen,” he says, and he’s gone again.

Dean is out of the bed and following him before he’s even aware of it, taste buds already salivating at the promise of coffee. Some things haven’t changed over the years. Dean being impossible before his morning coffee is one of those things.

Sam hands him a mug wordlessly, and Dean tries not to make happy, whimpering noises as he inhales his drug of choice.

“It’s good to see that your unhealthy attachment to coffee hasn’t changed.” Sam’s tone is wry but not cutting. Dean ignores it as he holds out his mug for a refill.

Sam just pours more coffee and goes to sit at the table. Dean watches him over the rim of his cup. Sam looks good here. Settled, relaxed. Dean doesn’t want to fuck that up.

“Talk,” Sam orders, and Dean barely stops a flinch.

“I just…” he says, and he knows that his face is twisted with hopeless fear. “I can’t, Sam. I thought I could, come to you, ask you, but I just can’t.”

He doesn’t want to fuck them up any more than they already are.

“We’ve been cursed all of our lives, Dean.” Sam’s voice is weary as he leans back in his chair. “We’ve lost so much. Don’t make me lose you too.” He shakes his head. “I know we don’t talk anymore, but it helps me to cope, knowing that you’re out there, somewhere.”

Dean slides into the chair opposite him and he puts his mug down. His hand is shaking too hard.

“The curse,” he begins and ignores the twinge of pain from his shoulder when he rests his elbows on the table.

“Ours or the witch’s?” Sam asks.

“Both,” Dean replies.

Sam blinks. “What?”

Dean takes a breath. He’s got to get this out. Somehow, he has to tell Sam that he’s managed to land up the proverbial shitcreek without a paddle. Or a canoe.

“She managed to twist the Winchester curse up with her mother’s curse so that I have to break them both.” Dean rubs his eyes wearily. He can feel the burden weighing him down.

“That’s a fucking good thing, Dean!” Sam exclaimed. “But how can we break our curse if…” He trails off. “The ghost bitch is the one who cursed Dad way back?”

Dean nodded. “Two birds, one stone.” He’s exhausted. It’s been miles of running on no sleep and too much coffee, and now, at the end of it, he just knows that he’s going to break them apart forever.

“So what do you have to do?” Sam asks.

Dean forces himself to meet Sam’s gaze. “The curse Dad saddled us with has to do with never being happy until we break every last law.”

Sam nods. “I’d have thought that would have happened by now, but there’s obviously one or two we’ve managed to miss.”

“It’s not about legal shit,” Dean tells him. “The ghost bitch has been very eager to share.”

“What’s it about then?” Sam asks.

“Moral law.” Dean tells him.

Sam frowns. “I don’t get…” he stops and waves a hand. “And the daughter’s curse?”

Dean can practically see the wheels turning in that gigantic brain as Sam starts thinking of options.

“Her curse was that I have to confess to the person who means all to me the truth of what I am.” Dean is bleak, and he can’t look at Sam anymore.

“So why did you..?” Sam stops again, and Dean sees the moment that Sam gets it. “Me?” his voice is almost a squeak, and Dean would laugh if he didn’t feel so fucking terrified. “I’m the person who means…?”

Dean nods. “Yeah. She got me but good.”

Sam starts laughing. “Oh my god. The king of all repressed emotion has to talk about his feelings. She fucked you over, dude.”

Dean scowls. “I talk about my feelings.” Sometimes. He can feel his shoulders hunching up around his ears. This sucks so much. And it hasn’t even really started yet.

Sam sobers, straightens up, and squares his shoulders. “So, come on then, tell me your truth. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Dean can hear the ghost bitch screaming outside. Neither she nor her daughter counted on Sam. Strong, brave, stupid Sam who didn’t have a clue about the shitstorm that Dean was trying to avoid.

“Sammy,” Dean says. “I just can’t tell you. It’s fucked up and wrong and I never want you to know.”

Sam just looks at him. “You are my family. You’re an asshole with so many fucking issues that I could write three Master’s theses on you and there’d still be more to say. I hate that you’ve stayed away. I was a dick to you the day I buried Amelia, but you stayed away.”

Dean sees that Sam’s eyes are glassy. He can’t handle Sam’s tears. “Sam, please.” He knows he’s begging, but Sam doesn’t stop.

“You weren’t there when I needed you the most, and I goddam hate you for that.” There’s a hitch in Sam’s voice that makes Dean want to run. “But I love you. You’re my brother, and you’ve died for me, and I will never, ever want you to stay away from me.” His mouth is a little wobbly but his jaw is set. “Do you understand me?”

Dean’s throat is closed, and his eyes are burning.

“Dean, do you understand me?” Sam’s hand is on Dean’s arm, fingers digging in, voice urgent.

“Yeah,” Dean whispers, and it comes out like sandpaper. “I understand.” He blows out a breath. “I hope you can forgive me for this,” he tells Sam.

******

Sam knows Dean better than Dean knows himself. He’s always seen his brother clearly. All the faults and issues and character traits that make him a dick, also make him amazing, make him Dean.

“Nothing you say to me will be anything I have a problem forgiving you for.” Sam is as sure of this as the sunrise. He’s never been so mad at Dean that he’s not forgiven him. And they’ve had some serious fall-outs over the years.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean mutters and scrubs at his face. “Okay, my truth.”

The ghost bitch is shrieking at the door, throwing herself at the windows, making the entire house shake. Sam can hear her fury.

“Stop stalling you asshole, just tell me.”

“It’s about you. About me and you,” Dean is pale, and Sam can see the fear in his eyes.

“Okay,” Sam prompts.

“Didn’t you ever wonder why it was so easy for me to leave Lisa and Ben, kill Benny, sell my soul to give you life?” Dean is looking straight at him now.

Sam shrugs, trying to follow Dean’s train of thought. “You’re my brother. The only family we have is each other. Zachariah always said we had dependency issues.” He tries to make light of it.

Dean isn’t letting it happen. “Zachariah was a dick, but he knew what he was talking about.” Dean shakes his head. “Do you know what broke me in hell?”

Dean has never told Sam this. The reason he got off the rack, started torturing souls, and set off the apocalypse. “What?” Sam asks.

“They kept showing up with you, bringing victims in wearing your face, skinning them alive in front of me, making them scream.” Dean is shaking, and Sam holds on.

“Dean, god, I’m so sorry.” He thinks he can hear his heart breaking.

“Then they’d rape you, split your chest open while some fucking demon fucked you apart. I just couldn’t…” Dean’s face is wet, and Sam realises that he’s crying too. “Couldn’t handle it anymore,” Dean says. “Couldn’t deal with seeing you pay for my fuck-ups all the time.”

“It wasn’t me,” Sam reminds him. “Dean, it was never me.”

Dean nods. “Yeah, but it didn’t matter in the end. They looked like you, and it was enough to make me give in.” He looks directly into Sam’s eyes. “See, they knew how I felt about you, that I love you more than anything in this world, Sammy. And the demons fucking knew it. The angels knew it. The witch knew it. You’re my weak spot, and I will do anything to keep you safe.”

Sam swallows over the lump in his throat. “That particular road goes both ways, Dean.”

Dean’s small smile isn’t a happy one. “Do you want to know why I stayed away when you and Amelia got back together?”

Sam isn’t sure he can cope with the sudden change of direction again, but he goes along with Dean anyway. “I thought you disapproved of me leaving the hunting life.” That’s what he’s always told himself.

Dean’s arm is trembling under Sam’s hand. “I was jealous.” His words are stark and bleak.

“Of me and Amelia?” Sam is startled and pulls his hand back.

Dean’s eyes are steady on his. “Of Amelia.”

Sam stares at Dean. “Of Ame…” He suddenly gets it. Finally. “Oh.”

Dean’s truth is out there. The ghost bitch shrieks her rage and the house shudders under the force of her wrath.

******

Dean waits.

He can feel the first part of the curse snapping inside him like some invisible chain suddenly made flesh. It sears and burns as it slips away from his soul.

Sam hasn’t hit him yet. Or told him to get the fuck away from him. Dean is counting this as a good thing.

“Okay.” Sam breathes the word like a vow. “Okay.”

“Okay what?” Dean asks, afraid to hear the answer.

Sam’s face is telling him nothing. “Your truth.” His voice is gravel rough. “Your truth is that you’re in love with me.”

Put out there, in words so plain and terrifying, Dean wants to leap back in time, take it all back and let the bitch kill him.

“Yeah,” he whispers instead.

“Okay,” Sam says again, and his eyes clear. Dean is staring at Sam. His Sam. The Sam that has been part of his life since his earliest memories.

“Okay,” Dean says instead, and they’re reaching out towards each other at the same time.

Their hands meet in the center of the table, and Sam’s fingers curl around his. “Nothing you say or do, Dean,” Sam repeats his earlier words. “You’re all I’ve got in the world, and nothing is ever going to make me love you less.”

Dean’s mouth twists in a small smile. It feels a little happier than the last one. “So, you’re okay with my gay, incestuous feelings for you?” He tries to joke but Sam’s fingers tighten around his.

“No.” Sam’s voice has dropped, low and firm. “You don’t get to laugh about this.”

Dean’s eyes fly to meet Sam’s, and in his gaze he sees determination, love, and something else that Dean is almost too afraid to identify.

“Sammy?” Dean wants to ask but the ball is in Sam’s court now.

“We still have the other part of the curse to break,” Sam says instead, and Dean feels like he’s been gut-punched. He just nods and tries to pull away from Sam.

Sam’s hand tightens again, and Dean wonders if he’ll have any bones left after Sam’s done with him. “Our curse,” Sam says.

“I’m okay with not being happy,” Dean says, and it’s not like he’s trying to be difficult here. Being happy isn’t something Dean has ever had so he’s not going to miss it.

“Well, I’m not okay with that,” Sam says. He stands up and pulls Dean to his feet too. “To break the Winchester curse we have to break every moral law,” he muses.

Dean tries to tug his hand away again but it’s as though Sam doesn’t even feel it. “I think we should…” Dean stops speaking when Sam takes a step towards him.

“Gay incest would possibly be breaking pretty much every moral law, right?” Sam asks.

Dean goes hot and then cold, and his cock is suddenly aching. This isn’t something he’s ever let himself think about. “No.”

“Dean,” Sam’s face is earnest now as he steps even closer. The heat of his body starts seeping into the cold that Dean’s been carrying with him for years. “It’s okay.”

“No it isn’t!” Dean twists away from him. “This isn’t something we go any further with.” He uses his ‘Dad’ voice. The voice that John Winchester used when his boys would get a little out of hand. It usually works.

Not this time.

Sam’s stalking him now. There’s no other way to put it, and Dean’s backing away until his ass hits the solid wood of the kitchen cupboards.

******

It’s suddenly all very clear to Sam. The thing that’s been wrong about his perfect life is that Dean has not been in it. The feeling that he’s missing something has been that he’s been missing Dean.

He watches Dean’s eyes grow wide as he presses into Dean’s personal space. There’s only a heartbeat between them as Sam lifts a hand to Dean’s face.

“Sam…” Dean sounds breathless and terrified and Sam can see that he’s looking desperately for an escape.

“It’s you.” Sam shakes his head in wonder. “All along, all this time, it’s been you.” He can’t believe that he’s been so blind. His body is flushed and hard and he leans into Dean, making sure that he’s touching as much of Dean as he can.

“I…Sam…we can’t…” Dean, who’s never at a loss for words, is sputtering as Sam closes the final space between them and kisses him.

The ghost bitch howls outside, battering against the runes and sigils that adorn Sam’s house.

“Dean,” Sam breathes into Dean’s mouth. “Love you, always you, only you.”

Dean shoves him back and caught by surprise, Sam lets him. “Oh, fuck you!” Dean spits. “I’m not some girl who needs declarations of love and devotion forever!” His face is furious, and his mouth is a thin line, but Sam knows Dean.

Dean is fucking terrified.

So Sam does what he’s always done when Dean’s being a scared little bitch. He smiles.

Dean’s eyes narrow. “What’s so fucking funny?” he demands and scoots backwards as Sam heads towards him again. “I mean it, Sammy! I’m not going to be a pity fu…”

Sam shuts him up in the simplest way possible. He kisses him again. It’s so very easy to kiss Dean.

Sam can’t believe how they fit together. Mouth to chest to legs. Every woman was always too tiny, too fragile. Sam had to be too careful.

But Dean fits into all of Sam’s spaces. He was made to fit Sam. Or maybe Sam was made to fit Dean.

Sam doesn’t care though. He wants to show Dean how much this isn’t about pity. Or trying to break a curse. Or losing touch with the one person who actually knows every last awful thing about you and still wants you in the car next to him.

“Shut up,” Sam tells Dean. “Just shut up and let me…” And he grabs Dean’s face again and holds him still while he kisses the breath right out of him.

Dean goes very still, and his hands come up slowly to take hold of Sam’s wrists. He’s not pulling away anymore. His mouth is soft and damp and Sam wants to get inside so badly.

Dean pulls back a little, and Sam lets him this time because it doesn’t feel like rejection. “What is this?” Dean asks, and his grip is tight on Sam’s wrists.

Sam stares at him. It feels like he’s seeing Dean for the first time. “Does it need a name?” he asks.

Dean chuffs out a laugh and shakes his head. “I guess not.” His mouth curls in a smile. It’s a tiny smile, but one that Sam cherishes because it’s real.

“I’ve just realised something,” Sam tells him.

They’re still standing so close together that air can’t separate them. Dean leans back a little to stare at him. “What’s that?” he asks, but he’s not trying to get away anymore.

“I’ve just realised that you’re the goddam love of my life,” Sam says and grins at Dean’s horrified expression.

“You take that back,” he orders Sam. “We are not twelve-year-old girls.”

Sam shakes his head. “I’ve been so stupid.” He rubs one thumb across Dean’s cheekbone and watches as Dean’s eyes slide closed automatically.

“And to think Dad always said that you were the brains in the family,” Dean drawls but sort of leans further into Sam’s touch. It’s as though he’s given himself permission to do this now.

Sam wants to tell him that he can do whatever he wants. But words have never been the Winchester way. It’s always been more about actions.

He pulls back and strips off his shirt, lets Dean see the determination in his face. His hands go to the hem of Dean’s shirt, and he pauses, waits for permission to bloom in a slight flush across Dean’s cheekbones.

Sam pushes Dean’s t-shirt up, and Dean lifts his arms. When he drops them again, his hands fall on Sam’s shoulders. His eyes are very bright as he stares up at Sam.

“You don’t think that this is an amazingly bad idea?” Dean asks, and it’s an almost curious question. The desire in his face tells Sam that he’s not alone in this.

Sam shakes his head. “Probably,” he admits and grins a little when Dean snorts. “But, we’ve never been the sort to make good life choices, now have we?”

He’s thinking of Jessica and Ruby and Amelia and even Sarah, all of the attempts at finding someone to share a life with when all this time, that person was right here. Right next to him.

“I don’t want this to be another fuck-up on top of the already monumental fuck-ups our lives have been already.” Dean watches him.

Sam nods. “Remember when we died and went to heaven?” He feels warm and feverish and moves closer to Dean. The heat ratchets up but the fever abates a little at the touch of skin on skin.

“Yeah?” Dean looks confused, but he waits for Sam to explain.

“Ash said that only special cases get to share the same heaven.” Sam watches as Dean thinks back on that memory.

“So?” Dean still isn’t getting it.

“Soul mates share the same heaven, Dean.” Sam wills Dean to understand. They’ve not talked about this before, but it’s something Sam knew the moment Ash said it.

“We were in the same heaven.”

Sam is pathetically grateful that Dean gets it. “We were in the same heaven,” Sam agrees.

Dean’s one hand moves across Sam’s shoulder to the back of his neck. Strong fingers twist in his hair as Dean holds Sam still so that he can look right at him. “We are soul mates.” It’s a declaration, and Sam would roll his eyes if it wasn’t so important.

“Yeah,” he says instead and then Dean is on him.

******

Dean holds Sam in place as he kisses him.

He’s kissing Sam.

It’s like something from a djinn-inspired dream because Sam is kissing him back.

It’s all wet tongue and biting and messy because Dean, fluid sexuality aside, he has never been like this with a guy. The only guy he’s ever wanted is right here in his arms.

Kissing him back.

Dean opens his mouth a little more, fingers tightening in the hair at Sam’s neck. He runs his tongue over Sam’s teeth and makes a needy sound that he will deny to his dying day when one of Sam’s big hands closes around his throat.

He thinks he might be okay with Sam tying him down one day.

“I think we should take this somewhere else,” Sam says when he pulls away. He turns and walks out of the kitchen. Dean watches him leave, the long line of his back and spine and all that mileage of golden skin.

For the first time, Dean can look and know that he’s going to get to touch and taste. And he’s moving before he’s aware of it.

Sam’s stripped off his jeans and is standing at the foot of his bed in his boxers when Dean walks in. It’s like the air has been sucked out of the room. Dean can’t stop staring at Sam.

“Gonna stand there like a goldfish or come over here and do something about breaking that curse?” Sam asks, and his voice is deep.

Dean’s eyes move up Sam’s body, cruising over the muscle definition of his abdomen and stopping at Sam’s throat where a pulse is beating wildly. It makes Dean feel a little better that Sam’s as nervous, turned-on, desperate for this as he is.

“Enjoying the view, Sammy,” Dean drawls and smiles when Sam shudders. He makes short work of his own jeans and walks over to where Sam is standing. He reaches out a hand on puts it over the tattoo branding Sam’s heart.

Sam matches his movement, pressing his own palm over Dean’s heart.

“Should have guessed you had a thing for me,” Dean says, “when you made us get these tattoos done.”

Sam arches an eyebrow. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Dean smirks. “Mrs Tran got hers on her arm. It would have been okay if we’d got ours done on our arm.” Sam glares at him. “Admit it, Sammy, you wanted to mark me as yours,” Dean taunts.

Dean has forgotten just how big Sam is and how fast he can move. One moment he’s taunting Sam, and the next, he’s flat on the bed with a Sam-shaped blanket draped over him.

Dean’s breath leaves him in a whoosh of sound, and he can’t catch it again as Sam noses beneath his chin. “You’re an asshole,” Sam tells him as he sucks a mark on Dean’s neck.

Dean angles his chin so that Sam has proper access. He’s not going to argue with eight feet of Sam. Besides, the results so far are awesome.

“Maybe,” he hedges. “But at least you know what you get with me.” And he’s not trying to be deep but this is too important to fuck up.

He pushes at Sam’s shoulders until Sam pulls up on his hands to stare down at him. “I need to know, if we do this and we break the curse…” Dean isn’t quite sure what he wants to ask.

Sam is. “Nothing you say or do, Dean.” He smiles at Dean. “You’ve been the one constant in my life. I won’t give you up again.”

Dean wants to make a disparaging sound, make a comment about Sam being a girl and watching too many chick-flicks. But Sam’s eyes are the color of moss and so very serious. So, he responds in kind. “I won’t let you chase me away again.”

Sam kisses him again. This time it’s soft and sweet and it feels like it might be Dean’s very first kiss.

Sam’s only touching him with his mouth now, holding his body over Dean without touching him. Dean wants all that heat and skin back on top of him, so he skims a hand down Sam’s back to the dip of his spine where sweat has pooled.

Sam arches into the touch and then away, and his groin is suddenly flush against Dean’s. It’s beyond terrifying and not only because Sam feels huge pressed up next to him.

“Do that again,” Sam begs, and Dean obeys, fingers finding the slope of his ass and digging in.

Sam drops his forehead to the space Dean’s neck and shoulder provides, and he uses his teeth on Dean’s skin.

“You’re not a fucking vampire, man,” Dean complains, but he’s holding onto Sam like he’s the only stable thing in the world.

“You taste so good,” Sam breathes into his skin, and Dean knows that what they’re doing is going to leave marks.

Dean brings his other hand up and places his palm over the back of Sam’s head, holding him in place. The hand at Sam’s ass moves down and under Sam’s boxers, finding smooth, hot skin.

“Dean,” Sam’s body is a long line of shaking muscle, and Dean wants to climb inside him and break him open from the inside out.

“Sam, my Sammy,” Dean whispers into the soft light of morning, and then his fingers press between Sam’s ass cheeks.

Sam’s breath hitches, but he doesn’t move except to inch his legs a little further apart, giving Dean better access.

“I haven’t done this,” Dean confesses, and Sam lifts his head.

Sam’s eyes are dark, and the skin across his cheekbones is flushed and tight. He’s sucking in deep breaths as though he’s been running for miles. “Nothing you do will feel wrong.”

And that’s just it. Dean surges up and rolls Sam over so that he’s on top and staring down at his baby brother. Sam is beautiful in the soft sunlight streaming through his bedroom window. His skin is covered in a fine sheen of sweat, and his hands drop down, palms open and facing up next to Sam’s head.

“Sam, god, you…” Dean feels like this is his first time and in many ways it is. “The things I feel,” he closes his eyes.

“Hey,” Sam’s voice urges Dean to look at him again. There is acceptance and love in those familiar eyes. “Don’t be a chicken shit now, asshole.”

Dean sputters a surprised laugh, and Sam’s long legs come up and around Dean’s waist, pushing their dicks together. The friction is unbelievable, and Dean wants to push and fuck down into Sam.

“Bitch,” he tells Sam with a grin. He moves a hand between their bodies, reaches beneath Sam’s boxers and wraps his fingers around him.

“Jerk,” Sam spits out on the end of a groan, hips rolling up to meet Dean’s fist.

Dean shoves at his boxers, wanting to feel Sam against him. Sam pushes at his own, fingers getting tangled. They’re laughing in exasperation by the time they’ve kicked their underwear away from themselves.

“I’m usually a little smoother,” Dean admits.

Sam raises an eyebrow and shakes his head. “I’ve seen your moves, remember?”

Dean lets a smirk curl across his mouth. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he tells Sam, and he takes both of their cocks in one hand. There is plenty of pre-come to help the slip-slide of his hand. And then Sam’s big hand curves around his and they’re doing it together.

Sam is just staring at Dean, eyes bright with wonder as they jack each other slowly. Dean can’t look away as his body starts tensing with his impending orgasm.

“God, Dean, you…I…want…” The broken noises that Sam is making are the sweetest things Dean has ever heard. No woman has made him harder faster, and he’s never wanted anything more than to push into Sam and fuck him for hours.

But he’s not going to last this time around. They aren’t. So he moves his hand faster and faster, Sam keeping pace with him as they race each other to come.

Sam breaks first; he flings his head back and his mouth opens in a silent shout as he comes over his belly and their joined hands.

Dean follows quickly, his body shuddering through the most intense orgasm he’s ever had.

He drops forward, the entire length of his body pressed up against Sam. They’re a sticky mess of come and sweat, but Dean never wants to move again.

Sam’s arms come up and around Dean, hands sweeping up and down the length of Dean’s back in slow, lazy strokes. Dean shoves his face into Sam’s neck, breathing him in. It’s a scent that is uniquely Sam, spice and sweat and sweetness. Dean thinks if he could bottle it, he’d make a fortune.

“Do you think we broke the curse?” Sam asks, and Dean remembers why this all started. How the fuck he’s forgotten, he doesn’t know. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that everything he ever wanted is lying under him, pliant and drowsy and sated.

“When I broke the first part, I felt something snap inside me,” Dean says into the warm skin beneath his mouth. He licks the salt from Sam’s neck, and Sam squirms beneath him. “I can’t say I felt anything break inside me.”

Sam’s arms tighten around him. “Maybe we have to…you know…”

Dean lifts his head and looks down at Sam. “You know?” he asks, and he can’t stop the smile.

“Shut up, dickhead,” Sam flushes and shoves at Dean to move.

Dean stays right where he is, perfectly comfortable even if it’s going to feel pretty gross in a few minutes. “You know?” he asks again, waggling his eyebrows.

“I hate you,” Sam sighs but stops trying to throw Dean off.

“No you don’t,” Dean says and this time he’s utterly confident. “You love me.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “You’re going to be an utter asshole to live with, aren’t you?” he asks, but Dean can see him fighting a smile.

“Nothing changes, little brother,” Dean tells him.

“Except when everything does,” Sam says.

And Dean feels the Winchester curse snap like a too-taut wire, unravelling from around his soul until there’s only light and air and he can really breathe for the first time in his life.

He stares down at Sam who is looking up at him with astonishment. “Did you feel that?” he asks Sam.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Was that…?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, and he lifts his head to listen for the ghost bitch. He hears a furious shriek and then silence. “I wonder if that’s it.”

Sam makes a sound, and Dean looks back down at him. He’s amazed all over again that he gets to have this. It’s more than he ever dreamed. More than he deserves.

“Well,” Sam drawls, and Dean’s breath quickens. “Practice does make perfect.”

Dean’s laughing as he leans down to kiss Sam. He’s finally home.

 

FIN