Fic: My Soul Look Back and Wonder
Title: My Soul Look Back And Wonder
Author: britomart_is
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Words: 3000
Notes: Spoilers for all aired episodes.
Summary: Dean gets his Sam back.
Dean has a great plan. He thinks. It's either going to fix his fucked-up life or it's going to kill him and crush his spirit for good.
All the elements of Dean's brilliant plan are laid out in front of him. Freezing-ass meat locker. Defibrillator. Two big fuck-off shots of adrenaline that under normal circumstances Dean would not want anywhere remotely near his sternum. Sam's brought supplies, too: a stopwatch, a snack and the latest Jose Saramago novel.
Sam, bundled up in coat and gloves, observes the tools that are going to kill Dean with a look of detached intellectual curiosity. He could be studying the effects of holy water on possessed C. elegans specimens. That look on Sam's face is a good reminder of why Dean's gotta do this.
Sam's soul ain't here. Whoever's got it is keeping it tucked away somewhere like leftover lasagna in a Tupperware. Keeping it somewhere where it'll stay quiet. Keep out of trouble. If Dean's right about where they've stashed the soul, and if he's right about him and Sam, then he is the one and only sorry sonofabitch who can find Sam's soul. If Dean's wrong about either of those things, then he's fucked.
There's a noisy crinkle as Sam opens the bag of chips and pops one in his mouth. The brittle crunch between his teeth is magnified in the claustrophobic space. Like Sam's bite is breaking bones. "We waiting for something?"
Dean takes a steadying breath and blows it out in a fog of white. "Let's rock and roll."
Sam primes the defibrillator, and Dean stretches out on the gurney they wheeled in here, shivers in his T-shirt and boxers, then stops shivering entirely. Sam watches Dean's progressive hypothermia with interest, nods to himself, and grabs the paddles to shock Dean to where he needs to be. Sam reaches for Dean, and
Dean chokes on lukewarm water, sinuses burning as he breathes it in. He surfaces spluttering into a blurry world of sunshine and sharp chlorine. He's coughing, coughing, coughing and confused, until a small fist strikes him between the shoulder blades, knocking the cough right out of Dean, an arm wrapping around Dean's waist.
"See?" says the fist's owner. "You gotta learn so you don't go under like that. It's not safe, Sammy."
Dean blinks stinging pool water out of his eyes and stares. Dean's ten year-old self has eyes too big for his face and a heavy dusting of freckles in a yoke across his shoulders. "Uh."
"Hey. You think I'm gonna let you drown?" Other Dean glares at him fiercely.
"Nah," Dean says, because he remembers this day. This day happened. This came after that awful afternoon when Sam fell in the pool in the motel courtyard and floundered, choking. This was a long day, hours in the pool till they were all pruned-up and sunburned, but at the end of it Sammy knew how to swim.
"Okay," Other Dean says, tough as a ten year-old can be. "We're gonna go again. Don't stop kicking, it'll just make you go under." Dean hesitates, not quite resigned to the idea that his epic brother-finding quest is going to involve lap-swimming. Other Dean pulls away from the wall and paddles to the center of the pool, treading water. "Just swim to me. Have I ever let you sink? Huh?"
Yes, Dean thinks at his small freckled self. Not yet, but you will.
Other Dean's gotta be maybe ten feet away. Dean sighs and pushes off the wall, swims to his younger self in an easy crawl stroke. He feels small hands catch him at his ribs, holding him up by the armpits. He looks up at ten year-old Dean, and wow. Dean's never really seen his own expression when he's bursting with pride before. He hadn't realized how warm it was, how transparently what he's feeling just shines out of him.
There's this flutter in Dean's chest that isn't coming from him. Warm flush rising up like the six year-old kid version of the tingling you get in your muscles after a couple beers. It's part of the memory, Dean thinks.
Dean takes off across the pool lengthwise, noisily splashing through the not-so-clean water with dead spiders floating in it. He stops and grabs the wall at the other end, looks back at Other Dean, who grins widely at him and hollers, "Come back now!"
Dean remembers how hungry he was by the end of the day and how unsympathetic Dad was to their vicious sunburns. He remembers how Sam took to the water like a fish after this, pestered Dean to practice, sulked when they moved on to a new motel. Dean remembers, but this was just an ordinary day for him.
He watches his younger self beaming and beckoning. For Sam, this day makes the Greatest Hits list.
Dean plunges underwater, shuts his eyes tight, and comes up dry and staring at a target, dinged up red-and-white metal. He's sighting down the rifle that's butted up against his shoulder, but it doesn't feel right, too light. There's warm breath against the back of his neck.
Music pulls Dean's focus outward, and he follows it, dizzied by the color and noise and tangle of bodies pressing past the arcade booths to the rest of the carnival, the rides and food and booths with fake psychics, the house of curiosities which Dean totally remembers, there was half a cat sewed to half a fish. The swampy hot air is sweet with cotton candy and spicy with chili dogs.
Dean looks back over his shoulder. The Dean standing behind him must be about fifteen, putting Sam at eleven and a terrible, terrible shot. The memory-Dean catches Dean's chin in thumb and forefinger, turns it back to the target.
"Focus," Other Dean says. His hands settle on Dean's shoulders. "Breathe in, and when you breathe out, just squeeze real gentle on the trigger."
Dean shifts the too-light air rifle in his hands, gaze flitting over the cord that ties it firmly to the booth's counter. The prizes tacked up to the booth's walls must once have seemed tantalizing: stuffed animals, a slingshot, plastic bags of desiccated candy they could've gotten from the bulk bin for less than the cost of arcade tickets. He breathes in and holds, feeling his younger self's body all coiled in anticipation behind him, and fires.
They rip into the bag of candy afterward, young Dean's Jolly Rancher painting his mouth bright red.
The lights of the Ferris Wheel bleed into the glow of the television. Dean is tipped sideways on the couch, head in his younger self's denim-clad lap. The Price is Right is on, and a woman in a baggy t-shirt is guessing too low on a washing machine. Dean's throat's been through a meat grinder, his muscles have run a marathon, his skin's steaming in a sauna. A hand rubs firm circles over his back. Another skritches his scalp with blunt fingernails. Dean shivers happily and pushes his head against the scratchy goodness. There's a quiet chuckle above him. He twists his face up.
The Dean cradling him in his lap is old enough that he's starting to look familiar, maybe twenty. He looks down at Dean, at what should be Sam in this memory. "You need more soup?"
There's a bowl on the coffee table giving off delicious salty smells, a single limp noodle left curled in the bottom. "Later," Dean croaks.
Young Dean's hand smoothes over his hair for a minute, then goes back to the gentle skritching.
Dean's eyes flutter shut and open to off-white cinder-block. He slides his gaze to the source of tap-tap-tapping. A greasy-haired kid with Sports Illustrated covers taped above his twin extra-long bed is working intently on his laptop. Dean groans internally. He once went undercover as a frat boy for a month to root out a warlock who was cursing kegs of Coors; he knows what a college dorm looks like.
The last thing Dean needs after a couple months of robo-Sam is to live through Sam's intellectual jerk-off fodder. There's a calculus book open on the bed. The room smells like stale laundry and spunk and Cool Ranch Doritos.
Dean runs his eyes over Sam's half of the room. Sheets too big for the mattress. Hanging from the closet doorknob, a threadbare towel Dean's pretty sure was stolen from a motel. Bare walls. On the desk, a stack of yellow legal pads covered in flowing longhand.
When the phone rings, the clamor bounces off the stone walls and around the tiny room. Dean's head aches. He thinks Sam might've had a hangover in this memory, which by the way? Is shit. Sam has terrible taste in shining moments.
The greasy roommate mumbles a few syllables into the receiver, then stretches the cord over to Sam. "It's for you."
Dean's heart skips a beat, but it's not his body that's freaking out over a single phone call. "Are you sure?"
The greasy boy shrugs. "Who the hell are you? Where's Sam? Oh. Put him on. I quote directly."
And the heart that isn't Dean's speeds further, and he grabs the phone. "Hello?"
"Hey," says his own voice, gruff and restrained on the other end of the line. "You bang any sorority girls yet?"
This must be about a month after Sam started at Stanford, then. The first phone call. Dean remembers its awkwardness in excruciating detail, so he leaves the phone dangling from its cord and walks out the door. Dean's only got until robo-Sam revives him, he doesn't have time to relive this, doesn't have time to boggle at the fact that Sam felt an awkward five-minute phone call was worth saving for eternity.
Dean moves through the twisting labyrinth of Sam's memories with greater urgency now, peering around corners, listening for Sam's familiar voice or laugh. Sam's in here somewhere, hiding out where he really wants to be, not in a cramped dorm room, twisting a hand nervously in the phone cord as he chats with a brother a thousand miles away.
There's a high-ceilinged library, quiet and echoing. A broad wooden table and books spread out over it. The kind of place with a turnstile at the door, the kind of place where just getting inside means someone saw something in you. Deemed you worthy. Sam isn't there.
A sunny kitchen. Jess cooking in her underwear and a too-big purple t-shirt with a greyhound on it. She burns sauce into the bottom of a pan, black sticky inedible tar. When they've waved the thick smoke out the window, Jess leans on Dean and laughs till she folds over, legs weak, and he has to hold her up. She presses a Thai takeout menu into his hands and distracts him with kisses while he calls the order in.
Sam isn't there, either.
A dark road wet with recent rain, blue neon in the distance and the barest strains of Creedence reaching them from the far-off jukebox. Dean is shambling, stupid-drunk with a slightly younger self pressed against his side. Arms slung around each other, swaying as they threaten to pull each other off balance. Other Dean is humming something soft and rumbling, then tripping over his own boots and nearly eating pavement. He fists two hands in Dean's jacket, holds himself upright as he sways with eyes closed, lashes brushing his cheeks.
But Sam isn't there.
A dusty basement with empty chains hanging from the walls. A thing is smoldering in the corner, and eight scared people are rushing up the stairs ahead of Dean, collapsing on the front lawn when they can breathe fresh air. Dean remembers this case. These people had been in the basement for weeks. They're scared, gasping, but they'll have a lifetime to get over it. Because this time, everybody lived. The other Dean claps him on the shoulder, gives him a look without words. Everybody lives.
But Sam isn't there.
Dean sits up in bed. A garish motel room. One of the worst he's seen. The radio is blaring. He winces. Dean sees himself lean through a doorway, toothbrush in hand. "I know, no Asia. This station sucks."
Dean should know this. He should know. He looks at the clock radio, and his eyes snag on the relevant fact. "It's Wednesday."
"Yeah. Which usually follows Tuesday."
"It's Wednesday," Dean repeats dumbly, because he's looking at his other self and Dean's on the verge of blushing, because Sam's Wednesday-feeling is filling him up like a glass of champagne bubbling over and Dean can't help seeing himself through memory-Sam's eyes. Can't help seeing that Other Dean is not dead, and can't help seeing that that is the. most. important thing in the world. The best thing that has ever happened.
"Dude, how many Tuesdays did you have?" his other self asks, looking unnerved, and Dean has to run out of the room before he follows the memory's urging and clings to Other Dean and never lets go.
Besides, Sam wasn't there.
The next memory plays like a pretentious student film, the same few seconds looped over and over and over. Dean's being restrained, Bobby's grabbing onto his arms.
Another Dean takes a step toward him, plastering a cheeky smile over wariness. "I know, I look fantastic, huh?"
The room flickers and snaps back.
Dean, who is not dead, steps toward him. "I know, I look fantastic, huh?"
The room flickers.
Dean, who is not in hell, steps toward him. "I know, I look fantastic, huh?"
The room flickers.
Dean, breathing and radiating body heat, steps toward him. "I know, I look fantastic, huh?"
The room flickers and Dean flees. That's about as much as he can take of the best three seconds of Sam's life.
Sam wasn't there.
Sam's not here either, but another Dean is. He's sprawled on his stomach, drooling on the pillow, wrapped up like a burrito in three layers of blankets. It's early-morning quiet, swath of winter sunlight warm on sleeping Dean's face.
Dean is lounged back in a chair, distracted from the obituaries page spread over the table. He's watching sleepy Dean. "Sam, you creepy fucker," Dean says, but Sam isn't there to hear the affection in his voice.
When Dean leaves that room, he travels through a forest, green and vibrant. Thick plush moss cushions his steps and soaks up all sound, making it seem like this canopy of trees is the entire world. Dean doesn't think this is a real place. The forest is Sam's creation. It's what Sam wants, the place where he can rest. The place that keeps his soul peaceful enough not to kick up a fuss.
Dean follows a glimpse of color into a clearing and finds a cottage, yellow and small. It looks enough like it's plucked from a fairy tale that Dean is going to give Sam shit for this forever. When he finds him.
As it turns out, that doesn't take long. Dean ascends the stairs and opens the unlocked door - there are no threats in this forest, no interruptions or distractions.
And there - there is Sam. He's dozing in a low wide bed, curled around another Dean, and that's how Dean knows this one isn't a memory, cause he's damn sure he'd remember this. The sleeping pair are half-covered in a sheet that looks soft where it drapes across the base of Sam's spine. Sam's hand is curled at the back of other Dean's head, fingers brushing his hair like they'd been playing at it before Sam dropped off to sleep. Sam's foot is kicked between Dean's ankles. There are no lines on Sam's face. No tension in the broad, muscular plane of his back.
Sam shifts and rouses slightly as Dean walks toward the bed on creaking floorboards, then sits up in a panic as the other Dean vanishes. His eyes lock on Dean for a confused moment before Dean crawls into bed fully clothed and takes the vanished Dean's place. He curves a hand around the bare back of Sam's neck and pulls him close. "Hey," Dean breathes out. He takes a moment to look at Sam's face after having searched so long for it.
"Dean?" Sam says. Realization dawns on his face. "Dean? Is that you?" Dean nods and Sam's face is aflame with a sudden flush. "I can explain," Sam says in a hurry.
Dean drags Sam's hand back to tangle in his hair. He catches Sam's foot between his ankles. "Hold on to me."
Sam's fingers clench in his hair, tugging uncomfortable and real and glorious. "Are you staying?"
"No," Dean says. And he's not even afraid, it's the strangest thing. He doesn't have to worry that Sam won't want to come back with him, won't willingly give up heaven to follow Dean wherever he goes. Dean's seen what Sam wants. "You're coming with me." He hitches in closer to Sam. "Just hold on tight."
Sam's nose brushes Dean's cheek when he asks wonderingly, "How'd you find me?"
"It's my heaven, too." The only person who could've found Sam is his soulmate. There's a violent jolt, and Dean tightens his arms around his brother.
The burn of the defibrillator is nothing compared to the fire of Sam's soul inside him. Dean's burning up in the chill of the meat locker, over-full of something fierce and golden and savagely loving. He rears up gasping. Robo-Sam is leaning over him with that look of detached curiosity and potato chip crumbs on his collar. Dean buries his hands in Sam's shirtfront and pulls him in. He opens his mouth against Sam's and breathes, holds there until he feels Sam's mouth open and soften. Dean knows it's worked when Sam shifts from leaning awkwardly over the gurney to pressing Dean firmly back against it, kissing Dean's lips, then his neck, then his chin, the corner of his mouth, his nose.
"Welcome back," Dean says. And maybe Sam left the tiniest bit behind, because Dean still feels the golden burn of Sam's soul. He thinks he always will.
Their breaths fog together, face to face, till they fumble out of the freezer and into the daylight.
Author: britomart_is
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Words: 3000
Notes: Spoilers for all aired episodes.
Summary: Dean gets his Sam back.
Dean has a great plan. He thinks. It's either going to fix his fucked-up life or it's going to kill him and crush his spirit for good.
All the elements of Dean's brilliant plan are laid out in front of him. Freezing-ass meat locker. Defibrillator. Two big fuck-off shots of adrenaline that under normal circumstances Dean would not want anywhere remotely near his sternum. Sam's brought supplies, too: a stopwatch, a snack and the latest Jose Saramago novel.
Sam, bundled up in coat and gloves, observes the tools that are going to kill Dean with a look of detached intellectual curiosity. He could be studying the effects of holy water on possessed C. elegans specimens. That look on Sam's face is a good reminder of why Dean's gotta do this.
Sam's soul ain't here. Whoever's got it is keeping it tucked away somewhere like leftover lasagna in a Tupperware. Keeping it somewhere where it'll stay quiet. Keep out of trouble. If Dean's right about where they've stashed the soul, and if he's right about him and Sam, then he is the one and only sorry sonofabitch who can find Sam's soul. If Dean's wrong about either of those things, then he's fucked.
There's a noisy crinkle as Sam opens the bag of chips and pops one in his mouth. The brittle crunch between his teeth is magnified in the claustrophobic space. Like Sam's bite is breaking bones. "We waiting for something?"
Dean takes a steadying breath and blows it out in a fog of white. "Let's rock and roll."
Sam primes the defibrillator, and Dean stretches out on the gurney they wheeled in here, shivers in his T-shirt and boxers, then stops shivering entirely. Sam watches Dean's progressive hypothermia with interest, nods to himself, and grabs the paddles to shock Dean to where he needs to be. Sam reaches for Dean, and
Dean chokes on lukewarm water, sinuses burning as he breathes it in. He surfaces spluttering into a blurry world of sunshine and sharp chlorine. He's coughing, coughing, coughing and confused, until a small fist strikes him between the shoulder blades, knocking the cough right out of Dean, an arm wrapping around Dean's waist.
"See?" says the fist's owner. "You gotta learn so you don't go under like that. It's not safe, Sammy."
Dean blinks stinging pool water out of his eyes and stares. Dean's ten year-old self has eyes too big for his face and a heavy dusting of freckles in a yoke across his shoulders. "Uh."
"Hey. You think I'm gonna let you drown?" Other Dean glares at him fiercely.
"Nah," Dean says, because he remembers this day. This day happened. This came after that awful afternoon when Sam fell in the pool in the motel courtyard and floundered, choking. This was a long day, hours in the pool till they were all pruned-up and sunburned, but at the end of it Sammy knew how to swim.
"Okay," Other Dean says, tough as a ten year-old can be. "We're gonna go again. Don't stop kicking, it'll just make you go under." Dean hesitates, not quite resigned to the idea that his epic brother-finding quest is going to involve lap-swimming. Other Dean pulls away from the wall and paddles to the center of the pool, treading water. "Just swim to me. Have I ever let you sink? Huh?"
Yes, Dean thinks at his small freckled self. Not yet, but you will.
Other Dean's gotta be maybe ten feet away. Dean sighs and pushes off the wall, swims to his younger self in an easy crawl stroke. He feels small hands catch him at his ribs, holding him up by the armpits. He looks up at ten year-old Dean, and wow. Dean's never really seen his own expression when he's bursting with pride before. He hadn't realized how warm it was, how transparently what he's feeling just shines out of him.
There's this flutter in Dean's chest that isn't coming from him. Warm flush rising up like the six year-old kid version of the tingling you get in your muscles after a couple beers. It's part of the memory, Dean thinks.
Dean takes off across the pool lengthwise, noisily splashing through the not-so-clean water with dead spiders floating in it. He stops and grabs the wall at the other end, looks back at Other Dean, who grins widely at him and hollers, "Come back now!"
Dean remembers how hungry he was by the end of the day and how unsympathetic Dad was to their vicious sunburns. He remembers how Sam took to the water like a fish after this, pestered Dean to practice, sulked when they moved on to a new motel. Dean remembers, but this was just an ordinary day for him.
He watches his younger self beaming and beckoning. For Sam, this day makes the Greatest Hits list.
Dean plunges underwater, shuts his eyes tight, and comes up dry and staring at a target, dinged up red-and-white metal. He's sighting down the rifle that's butted up against his shoulder, but it doesn't feel right, too light. There's warm breath against the back of his neck.
Music pulls Dean's focus outward, and he follows it, dizzied by the color and noise and tangle of bodies pressing past the arcade booths to the rest of the carnival, the rides and food and booths with fake psychics, the house of curiosities which Dean totally remembers, there was half a cat sewed to half a fish. The swampy hot air is sweet with cotton candy and spicy with chili dogs.
Dean looks back over his shoulder. The Dean standing behind him must be about fifteen, putting Sam at eleven and a terrible, terrible shot. The memory-Dean catches Dean's chin in thumb and forefinger, turns it back to the target.
"Focus," Other Dean says. His hands settle on Dean's shoulders. "Breathe in, and when you breathe out, just squeeze real gentle on the trigger."
Dean shifts the too-light air rifle in his hands, gaze flitting over the cord that ties it firmly to the booth's counter. The prizes tacked up to the booth's walls must once have seemed tantalizing: stuffed animals, a slingshot, plastic bags of desiccated candy they could've gotten from the bulk bin for less than the cost of arcade tickets. He breathes in and holds, feeling his younger self's body all coiled in anticipation behind him, and fires.
They rip into the bag of candy afterward, young Dean's Jolly Rancher painting his mouth bright red.
The lights of the Ferris Wheel bleed into the glow of the television. Dean is tipped sideways on the couch, head in his younger self's denim-clad lap. The Price is Right is on, and a woman in a baggy t-shirt is guessing too low on a washing machine. Dean's throat's been through a meat grinder, his muscles have run a marathon, his skin's steaming in a sauna. A hand rubs firm circles over his back. Another skritches his scalp with blunt fingernails. Dean shivers happily and pushes his head against the scratchy goodness. There's a quiet chuckle above him. He twists his face up.
The Dean cradling him in his lap is old enough that he's starting to look familiar, maybe twenty. He looks down at Dean, at what should be Sam in this memory. "You need more soup?"
There's a bowl on the coffee table giving off delicious salty smells, a single limp noodle left curled in the bottom. "Later," Dean croaks.
Young Dean's hand smoothes over his hair for a minute, then goes back to the gentle skritching.
Dean's eyes flutter shut and open to off-white cinder-block. He slides his gaze to the source of tap-tap-tapping. A greasy-haired kid with Sports Illustrated covers taped above his twin extra-long bed is working intently on his laptop. Dean groans internally. He once went undercover as a frat boy for a month to root out a warlock who was cursing kegs of Coors; he knows what a college dorm looks like.
The last thing Dean needs after a couple months of robo-Sam is to live through Sam's intellectual jerk-off fodder. There's a calculus book open on the bed. The room smells like stale laundry and spunk and Cool Ranch Doritos.
Dean runs his eyes over Sam's half of the room. Sheets too big for the mattress. Hanging from the closet doorknob, a threadbare towel Dean's pretty sure was stolen from a motel. Bare walls. On the desk, a stack of yellow legal pads covered in flowing longhand.
When the phone rings, the clamor bounces off the stone walls and around the tiny room. Dean's head aches. He thinks Sam might've had a hangover in this memory, which by the way? Is shit. Sam has terrible taste in shining moments.
The greasy roommate mumbles a few syllables into the receiver, then stretches the cord over to Sam. "It's for you."
Dean's heart skips a beat, but it's not his body that's freaking out over a single phone call. "Are you sure?"
The greasy boy shrugs. "Who the hell are you? Where's Sam? Oh. Put him on. I quote directly."
And the heart that isn't Dean's speeds further, and he grabs the phone. "Hello?"
"Hey," says his own voice, gruff and restrained on the other end of the line. "You bang any sorority girls yet?"
This must be about a month after Sam started at Stanford, then. The first phone call. Dean remembers its awkwardness in excruciating detail, so he leaves the phone dangling from its cord and walks out the door. Dean's only got until robo-Sam revives him, he doesn't have time to relive this, doesn't have time to boggle at the fact that Sam felt an awkward five-minute phone call was worth saving for eternity.
Dean moves through the twisting labyrinth of Sam's memories with greater urgency now, peering around corners, listening for Sam's familiar voice or laugh. Sam's in here somewhere, hiding out where he really wants to be, not in a cramped dorm room, twisting a hand nervously in the phone cord as he chats with a brother a thousand miles away.
There's a high-ceilinged library, quiet and echoing. A broad wooden table and books spread out over it. The kind of place with a turnstile at the door, the kind of place where just getting inside means someone saw something in you. Deemed you worthy. Sam isn't there.
A sunny kitchen. Jess cooking in her underwear and a too-big purple t-shirt with a greyhound on it. She burns sauce into the bottom of a pan, black sticky inedible tar. When they've waved the thick smoke out the window, Jess leans on Dean and laughs till she folds over, legs weak, and he has to hold her up. She presses a Thai takeout menu into his hands and distracts him with kisses while he calls the order in.
Sam isn't there, either.
A dark road wet with recent rain, blue neon in the distance and the barest strains of Creedence reaching them from the far-off jukebox. Dean is shambling, stupid-drunk with a slightly younger self pressed against his side. Arms slung around each other, swaying as they threaten to pull each other off balance. Other Dean is humming something soft and rumbling, then tripping over his own boots and nearly eating pavement. He fists two hands in Dean's jacket, holds himself upright as he sways with eyes closed, lashes brushing his cheeks.
But Sam isn't there.
A dusty basement with empty chains hanging from the walls. A thing is smoldering in the corner, and eight scared people are rushing up the stairs ahead of Dean, collapsing on the front lawn when they can breathe fresh air. Dean remembers this case. These people had been in the basement for weeks. They're scared, gasping, but they'll have a lifetime to get over it. Because this time, everybody lived. The other Dean claps him on the shoulder, gives him a look without words. Everybody lives.
But Sam isn't there.
Dean sits up in bed. A garish motel room. One of the worst he's seen. The radio is blaring. He winces. Dean sees himself lean through a doorway, toothbrush in hand. "I know, no Asia. This station sucks."
Dean should know this. He should know. He looks at the clock radio, and his eyes snag on the relevant fact. "It's Wednesday."
"Yeah. Which usually follows Tuesday."
"It's Wednesday," Dean repeats dumbly, because he's looking at his other self and Dean's on the verge of blushing, because Sam's Wednesday-feeling is filling him up like a glass of champagne bubbling over and Dean can't help seeing himself through memory-Sam's eyes. Can't help seeing that Other Dean is not dead, and can't help seeing that that is the. most. important thing in the world. The best thing that has ever happened.
"Dude, how many Tuesdays did you have?" his other self asks, looking unnerved, and Dean has to run out of the room before he follows the memory's urging and clings to Other Dean and never lets go.
Besides, Sam wasn't there.
The next memory plays like a pretentious student film, the same few seconds looped over and over and over. Dean's being restrained, Bobby's grabbing onto his arms.
Another Dean takes a step toward him, plastering a cheeky smile over wariness. "I know, I look fantastic, huh?"
The room flickers and snaps back.
Dean, who is not dead, steps toward him. "I know, I look fantastic, huh?"
The room flickers.
Dean, who is not in hell, steps toward him. "I know, I look fantastic, huh?"
The room flickers.
Dean, breathing and radiating body heat, steps toward him. "I know, I look fantastic, huh?"
The room flickers and Dean flees. That's about as much as he can take of the best three seconds of Sam's life.
Sam wasn't there.
Sam's not here either, but another Dean is. He's sprawled on his stomach, drooling on the pillow, wrapped up like a burrito in three layers of blankets. It's early-morning quiet, swath of winter sunlight warm on sleeping Dean's face.
Dean is lounged back in a chair, distracted from the obituaries page spread over the table. He's watching sleepy Dean. "Sam, you creepy fucker," Dean says, but Sam isn't there to hear the affection in his voice.
When Dean leaves that room, he travels through a forest, green and vibrant. Thick plush moss cushions his steps and soaks up all sound, making it seem like this canopy of trees is the entire world. Dean doesn't think this is a real place. The forest is Sam's creation. It's what Sam wants, the place where he can rest. The place that keeps his soul peaceful enough not to kick up a fuss.
Dean follows a glimpse of color into a clearing and finds a cottage, yellow and small. It looks enough like it's plucked from a fairy tale that Dean is going to give Sam shit for this forever. When he finds him.
As it turns out, that doesn't take long. Dean ascends the stairs and opens the unlocked door - there are no threats in this forest, no interruptions or distractions.
And there - there is Sam. He's dozing in a low wide bed, curled around another Dean, and that's how Dean knows this one isn't a memory, cause he's damn sure he'd remember this. The sleeping pair are half-covered in a sheet that looks soft where it drapes across the base of Sam's spine. Sam's hand is curled at the back of other Dean's head, fingers brushing his hair like they'd been playing at it before Sam dropped off to sleep. Sam's foot is kicked between Dean's ankles. There are no lines on Sam's face. No tension in the broad, muscular plane of his back.
Sam shifts and rouses slightly as Dean walks toward the bed on creaking floorboards, then sits up in a panic as the other Dean vanishes. His eyes lock on Dean for a confused moment before Dean crawls into bed fully clothed and takes the vanished Dean's place. He curves a hand around the bare back of Sam's neck and pulls him close. "Hey," Dean breathes out. He takes a moment to look at Sam's face after having searched so long for it.
"Dean?" Sam says. Realization dawns on his face. "Dean? Is that you?" Dean nods and Sam's face is aflame with a sudden flush. "I can explain," Sam says in a hurry.
Dean drags Sam's hand back to tangle in his hair. He catches Sam's foot between his ankles. "Hold on to me."
Sam's fingers clench in his hair, tugging uncomfortable and real and glorious. "Are you staying?"
"No," Dean says. And he's not even afraid, it's the strangest thing. He doesn't have to worry that Sam won't want to come back with him, won't willingly give up heaven to follow Dean wherever he goes. Dean's seen what Sam wants. "You're coming with me." He hitches in closer to Sam. "Just hold on tight."
Sam's nose brushes Dean's cheek when he asks wonderingly, "How'd you find me?"
"It's my heaven, too." The only person who could've found Sam is his soulmate. There's a violent jolt, and Dean tightens his arms around his brother.
The burn of the defibrillator is nothing compared to the fire of Sam's soul inside him. Dean's burning up in the chill of the meat locker, over-full of something fierce and golden and savagely loving. He rears up gasping. Robo-Sam is leaning over him with that look of detached curiosity and potato chip crumbs on his collar. Dean buries his hands in Sam's shirtfront and pulls him in. He opens his mouth against Sam's and breathes, holds there until he feels Sam's mouth open and soften. Dean knows it's worked when Sam shifts from leaning awkwardly over the gurney to pressing Dean firmly back against it, kissing Dean's lips, then his neck, then his chin, the corner of his mouth, his nose.
"Welcome back," Dean says. And maybe Sam left the tiniest bit behind, because Dean still feels the golden burn of Sam's soul. He thinks he always will.
Their breaths fog together, face to face, till they fumble out of the freezer and into the daylight.