Chapter One: When I Look At You (And You Hold My Hand)
It was late and they should both be exhausted, considering the amount of sex they’d had in the past couple of hours. They didn’t get the place to themselves all that often these days, so Dean and Sam had taken advantage of it. The kitchen saw the first piece of action, Sam sucking his brother for all he was worth as the cabinet fixtures left little dents in the backs of Dean’s legs. There was a pit-stop in the bathroom that was intended for cleanup but ended up with Sam trembling all over, his head hanging low as he held on to the counter while Dean licked out his hole like it was his favorite dessert. Cleanup did actually occur, it was just half an hour or so later than they originally intended. Finally making it to Sam’s bedroom (which had the larger bed and the sturdier headboard) they were both hard again, in complete defiance of human biology and every theory regarding refractory periods for men their age. At least now that the edge had been taken off, the stamina kicked in and they were able to make it last - and last and last and last. How the hell something on that side of painful could feel better than Heaven (and they’d been there, so they knew) was still unexplained, but Dean didn’t really care and Sam was too dick-drunk and wiped out to think about it.
Once they were both spent, well and truly spent in the sense that there would be no more sex until they’d gotten a decent amount of sleep, Dean let out a wicked chuckle against Sam’s chest.
“What’s so funny, babe?” Babe. Yes. Because that was a thing that Sam called Dean sometimes, and if Dean said he didn’t like it, well, any pants he might have been wearing would have been on fire as he sat atop his throne of lies.
“Just thinking…this was always such a big damn secret. Because, you know. Incest. Oh, quit with the face, I know you hate that word, sorry. But it turns out nobody really has that much of a problem with it. Isn’t that kind of weird?”
Sam propped himself up on his elbow and replied, “I guess, but we have weird lives. And weird friends. I think if they can handle monsters and torn out body parts and celestial cage matches, a little non-traditional relationship between brothers doesn’t seem so insane in comparison.”
“Yeah, but we may have traumatized a couple of people. I mean, poor Jody. The look on her face…”
*****
Jody Mills was a small woman with a huge heart, as well as an industrial-sized capacity for staying calm in the face of seemingly insurmountable danger. She hadn’t had all that much contact with the Winchester brothers until that horrific year of battling the Leviathan, losing Bobby, and reaching out when she could to the only people who understood. Since Sam and Dean had settled down in Kansas, though, she’d been to visit on a number of occasions. Sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for a few days.
There was no question about the fact that these two young men had lives that revolved around each other like nothing she’d ever seen before. And let’s be honest, she’d seen a lot. But no one spent much time dwelling on the codependent and fierce relationship these two guys had. Jody knew, from stories Bobby had told her, that the three Winchesters had spent much of their lives interacting with no one but each other; at least, no one human. Even after being separated for the years Sam had been in college (and he’d come so close to finishing, Jody lamented his being pulled away from that even though she understood it had been necessary), he joined right up with Dean again. Priority number one - locate their father. Complete the family. They were a unit, when it came right down to brass tacks, and there was a pull there that was outside anyone’s control. From the way Bobby told it, it was like a crazy orbit - sometimes they crashed together, sometimes they wandered a bit, but the Winchesters were always drawn back together, back to each other. She’d never met the boys’ father (a habit she’d picked up from Bobby, she guessed, always thinking of these two grown men as ‘boys’), but she had a clear enough understanding of the man from stories she’d heard and assumptions she’d made from what she knew about how he’d raised them. Jody mourned for the childhood they could have had under different circumstances, and she didn’t think much of John’s decision to bring them along as he chased his obsession. Sure, he may have thought preparing them for dealing with the supernatural was the right thing to do, the only way to ensure their safety in the life he’d chosen for their family. That didn’t make it acceptable, in her mind, that they’d never really had the chance to be children. She figured Dean had gotten a little bit of it, before his mother died, but she couldn’t imagine he remembered much from such a young age. She knew that Dean and John had both put some effort into trying to protect Sam from the truth for a little bit longer than Dean had ever been. Jody suspected that it was Dean’s effort more than John’s, though, the attempt to let Sam get as much ‘normal’ as was possible considering that they lived out of their car and various seedy motel rooms.
Bottom line, they’d grown up being trained like soldiers, from what she could tell, and those lessons never left them. They’d also grown up with no support system to speak of - occasional visits with Bobby and another family friend (who was now also dead as a result of his connection to the Winchesters) were pretty much the only contact they had with anyone except each other. So it was no surprise that Sam seemed to do nothing without considering Dean, and Dean seemed to factor Sam’s needs or feelings into every decision he made. Even now, after it appeared that there wasn’t much left for them to do as far as the family business went, the thought of creating separate lives wasn’t even on their radar. They’d found this place, learned a little more about their family history, and for once in their adult lives, just stayed still. But they stayed together. Either of them could have tried, at this point, to make their own way in the world. That hadn’t worked out well for them in the past, Jody knew, and neither Dean nor Sam showed any interest in trying it again.
She’d been there a few times, and always felt welcomed and comfortable. It was clear that the boys were fond of her, whether that was because they genuinely enjoyed her company or because she was a connection to Bobby (or a combination of both maybe), and she was equally as fond of them both. Sam was a little slow in coming back from the physical effects of the trials, but now he was healthy again. Dean still watched his younger brother like a hawk, but each time she saw them, she could tell Dean was settling in with the fact that Sam was really going to be all right. They laughed now, real true laughter; they bantered back and forth, teased each other, split up household chores and finished each other’s sentences sometimes. So they were close - closer than any other set of siblings Jody had ever known, but that was just how they worked. She didn’t judge; they were happy and if any two people on the planet deserved a little bit of happiness, it was Dean and Sam Winchester.
None of this knowledge prepared her for what happened when she was there for Thanksgiving last year. It had been a nice visit. She’d gotten to know Castiel (Cas, she reminded herself, this wasn’t just Dean’s nickname for him, it was actually what he preferred to be called these days) a little better, and finally had a chance to sit with Kevin and talk about normal things that someone so young would be interested in. After they’d had their fill of the shockingly elaborate holiday dinner that Dean had prepared with only a little help from his housemates, all of them sat around getting drunk on honey-flavored whiskey that Cas had discovered recently and kept a good stock of all the time. Swapping stories and laughing until their sides hurt had them up pretty late, so the whole house slept in the following morning. Jody had gotten up around eleven, head pounding and body demanding caffeine. She was still young, sure, had never thought of herself as old, even when she was spending time with people much younger than she was, but she was pretty sure she was too old to keep up with these guys when it came to drinking until the wee hours of the morning. Forcing herself to wash her face and throw on a bathrobe over her pajamas before wandering out into the living area, she was thrilled to smell coffee already brewing - clearly, she wasn’t the first person awake. Walking toward the kitchen, though, she stopped dead in her tracks when she got to the entrance.
There in front of her, casually leaning against the counter, Dean was ignoring his steaming mug of morning sustenance in favor of running his hands through Sam’s hair. And this - this wasn’t a teasing gesture, like a guy would tousle his younger brother’s hair. It was more like a caress, and Sam’s expression was blissful, though his eyes were closed. His right arm was firmly around Dean’s waist and there was less than an inch separating them. Dean looked up at Sam, still stroking his hair, then moved his head, closing the tiny gap between them to lay a few gentle kisses to Sam’s neck. Even from where she was standing, Jody could hear Sam’s soft sound of pleasure, like a cross between a sigh and a moan. It almost sounded like he was humming or…purring maybe?
Jody was frozen in place. She didn’t think it would be the right thing to walk into the room and interrupt what was happening, but she absolutely could not force herself to look away. It was shocking, no question about it. She’d never seen their closeness as a sexual thing, the thought had just never occurred to her. Probably because they were brothers, and no matter how joined at the hip they appeared to be, it was outside her frame of understanding that this was a possibility. Everything she’d ever known about incestuous relationships had negative connotations - it was usually not consensual, hardly ever occurred when both participants were adults, and her law enforcement experience had only shown her complete disaster for whoever was the victim of such activity.
What was right there before her eyes was unquestionably consensual, and there was no victim of anything. Dean and Sam looked, to her, like any content and loving couple sharing an intimate moment. All of her past experience in relation to incest was being turned on its head by the sight of these two clearly comfortable and happy men (men, she reminded herself again, not boys). Unfortunately, by the time Jody decided it would be best to back up and make another attempt at heading for the kitchen, this time making lots of noise on her way or possibly calling out to alert people to her presence, Sam had opened his eyes and was looking right at her. Nudging Dean in her direction, now they could both see her standing there, basically spying on them when they thought they were alone. Sam moved back a little, creating some space between himself and his brother, but the look on his face was more wariness and concern than anything resembling guilt.
“Morning, Jody”, Dean said, breaking the silence and giving her a chance to speak.
“Good morning, Dean. I’m sorry, I - I just came out here looking for coffee, I didn’t mean to, uh, interrupt? Stand here staring when I really should have just walked away?” She was sure her face was as red as a tomato, but she was trying not to make them feel bad; she’d been the one spying, after all.
Sam studied her closely before he joined in. “You’re not freaking out. I mean, you look like you’re freaking out a little (her eyes were probably bugging out of her head, she thought, and she could feel the intense flush on her face, so it was a fair assessment) but you don’t look mad or disgusted. It’s not like this”, he motioned between himself and Dean, “is something most people generally think is acceptable behavior.” It seemed like he wanted to continue, but Jody figured she might as well go ahead and rescue all three of them before things got any more awkward than they already were.
“I’m not freaking out, Sam. Well, I guess I kind of am, but not because I’m upset or anything. I’m shocked, I really am, the thought never crossed my mind that you and Dean were…involved like this. But I’m not freaking out, not in a bad way.”
Now it was Dean’s turn to eye her with suspicion. “Seriously, you’re not at least going to yell at us for being irresponsible or fucked up or whatever?”
“I’m really not. I mean, I get it, Dean, this is something private and it’s unusual and it’s not exactly acceptable, like Sam said, to most people. But I’d think you both know by now that I’m not ‘most people’. I love you, both of you, I love you like my own kids, if I were old enough to have children your age, which I am certainly not”, she felt compelled to add, “but of all the times I’ve seen you two I’ve never seen either of you look as happy as you did when I walked out here this morning.”
“We are, Jody. We’re happy. Our lives aren’t perfect or anything, but this is the most peaceful we’ve been in as long as either of us can remember”, Sam said, though Jody’s comment had really been a response to Dean.
“Look, I’m not gonna ask you any questions about this. I’ve got no reason to begrudge either of you well-deserved happiness. Clearly, you’ve never been big into public displays of affection, which is understandable given the situation. But please, don’t feel like you have anything to be ashamed of, or anything you think you have to hide from me. The past couple of years as I’ve gotten to know you both better, I’ve only ever wanted you to find some measure of peace. If you found it with each other, even in a way that’s, well, unusual, to say the least…I’m not going to tell you it’s wrong. You’re both adults, and especially after the life you’ve led, you’re entitled to choose your own path.”
Jody could feel their relief just as strongly as she saw it on their faces. It was clear that it was important to Sam and Dean for her to approve of their relationship now that she knew about it, and she couldn’t help but finally move close enough to them to take one of their hands in each of hers. Just a little squeeze and a smile, and that seemed to be enough for all of them. “Can I get my coffee now, guys? I’m hung over as shit.”
And just like that, the mood was lightened. The two of them weren’t holding each other anymore, but Dean grabbed a mug to pour Jody’s coffee, and Sam opened the fridge to search for appropriate hangover food. The occasional casual touches she’d seen so many times before made so much more sense now, even though she was still reeling a little from being let in on their secret. All three of them went about the business of preparing a proper breakfast, and things felt settled and comfortable.
It did not escape her notice that neither of them made any effort to stop the brushing of their shoulders or quick linking of their fingers once Cas entered the room in search of his own breakfast.
*****
Sam laughed quietly. “Yeah. If she was a cartoon she would have been doing that thing where your eyes go all swirly. But you know, she was so cool about it. I guess we’ve been lucky. I mean, it’s not like a lot of people know. For such a long time we had to make sure that no one knew, ever”, he said, rolling over onto his back and staring up at the ceiling. “Things have just changed so much. Different people around now…”
They met each other’s eyes and grinned. Both of them were thinking the exact same thing - maybe Jody wasn’t the only person they’d traumatized, and she was so much better equipped to handle it than their other ‘roommate’ in the bunker.
If anyone had taken Kevin Tran aside a couple of years ago, while he was planning out his Advanced Placement credits and carefully choosing the most advantageous extra-curricular activities to be listed on his college applications, and given him a preview of what his future was really going to be like, his head likely would have exploded on the spot. Luckily, when everything changed so suddenly for him, he wasn’t really in control of anything he was doing. One minute he was trudging through homework and talking to his girlfriend, and the next thing he knew he was running around outside a mental hospital in an attempt to avoid being tackled by the largest man he’d ever seen in person. It wasn’t like Kevin had been raised in a religious household, so he was more than in awe when he was confronted with the fact that God was real, Heaven and angels were real, demons were real, monsters were real, monster-hunters were real; oh, and prophets were real, too, clearly, since he was one…it was a little much to intellectually digest in such a short period of time.
He was compelled against his will to get involved, then he actually wanted to be involved for several different reasons, and of course there was the part where he had no other choice but to be involved because if he wasn’t he was going to die or someone else was going to die or the whole world was going to end or he wanted revenge for what he’d lost. After all that had happened, he thought there was nothing that could shock him anymore.
That was, until, he was abandoned. As quickly as the Winchesters had invaded and taken over Kevin’s world, they were gone - both of them, and he totally lost it. During his brief bouts of lucidity, the only emotion he could feel clearly was anger. At Dean and Sam, at Crowley, at Heaven and God and the angels. He’d done everything right, and it had gotten him nothing. Worse than nothing, it got him pain and loss and misery and frustration. Just when he thought he might as well crawl into a hole somewhere and wait to die, those fucking Winchesters showed up again. If he’d been able to feel sympathy, he probably would have. Objectively, both of them looked like they’d been to Hell and back (again). Dean was clearly damaged worse than he’d ever been in the past, and Sam was drowning in guilt and despair so badly that it was almost a physical presence. The two of them had always had a really strange vibe - being an only child, Kevin had no first-hand knowledge, but even for brothers without any other family, they were awfully tangled up with each other. On the rare occasions that he thought about it, he was certain it couldn’t be healthy. He didn’t think about it often; there were much more important issues to deal with. It would all be over, just as soon as Sam had finished those trials.
The sense of betrayal he felt on that night the angels started to fall was all-encompassing. At first, he thought he was going to kill Dean Winchester. Not that it would be an easy task, but Kevin was capable of much more than anyone gave him credit for, and the anger that had been simmering in him for so long had turned to pure rage when he found out that Dean had stopped Sam from finishing that last trial. So fucking selfish, but it was typical. Dean could live with Heaven crashing to earth and giving up the only chance of sealing the demons into Hell before he could live without Sam. Tangled up, he thought again, weird, unnaturally intertwined. It couldn’t be changed, though. None of them could turn back the clock and even if they could, Dean wouldn’t have made a different decision anyway.
Kevin had no place else to go. He spent a whole lot of time locked away in his own room, avoiding Sam and Dean and this strange new version of Castiel. Kevin hadn’t ever liked the angel before, and now that he wasn’t an angel, he was pretty pathetic most of the time. There was no way he was going to take the chance of starting to feel sorry for Cas, so Kevin just kept to himself most of the time. But as things settled down and they all started to accept this new reality, he very slowly began to interact with this strange group of people who were all he really had left. They saw Garth now and then, which was fine; he was a nice enough guy and in Kevin’s estimation just as much a victim of this Winchester bullshit as anyone else. Dean and Sam’s insistence that Kevin stay there with them had helped - it wasn’t like he had a home and a family to go back to, and the brothers seemed to have no intention of going their own ways. No surprise there. They could have, of course, especially after Sam was healthier, but the two of them were probably going to end up living the bachelor life together indefinitely. Neither of them expressed any interest in starting a family of their own outside the odd little self-made family there in this tucked away Kansas hideout. The place was beginning to feel more like a home than a hideout these days, anyway, and the two of them already bitched and bickered like an old married couple. Probably had since way before they’d come crashing into Kevin’s life. If everything they’d been through in the past couple of years hadn’t pushed the brothers apart, it wasn’t likely that anything ever would.
They’d made a habit of doing the occasional movie night lately. Dean was great in the kitchen and they all reaped the benefits of his cooking skills. Especially Sam, who had been very slow to physically recover from the effects of the trials. Kevin suspected one of the reasons Dean put so much effort into learning to prepare healthy meals on a regular basis was because he was, as usual, focused on doing whatever he could to make sure Sam got better. So about once a week, Dean would put together a bunch of snacks, move a cooler full of beer into the living area (no one ever mentioned Kevin being underage, they’d been supplying him with alcohol since he was barely eighteen) and put on whichever movie had been chosen by the person whose turn it was to pick it out.
This led to many discoveries. The first was that though all four of them had different taste in films, they usually ended up gaining appreciation for new genres instead of bitching about watching something they wouldn’t normally have wanted to. The second was that Cas really liked getting hammered, and was strangely coherent and even kind of funny when he was drunk.
The third…well, that one took Kevin a while to figure out. In the beginning, Sam was still fairly weak and often fell asleep before the movie was done, even if it was one he had picked. So it wasn’t unusual for him to end up passed out against his brother’s shoulder, Dean sometimes letting him stay there if his snoring wasn’t too loud and sometimes pausing the film to help him up and escort him to his bed so he could get some proper sleep. Sam’s health did eventually improve but he was always still fairly close to Dean physically, even though he was completely alert and awake, even engaged in commentary with Cas when there were things Cas didn’t understand about the story unfolding on the screen. Not like they were snuggling up to each other or anything. At least, not at first. The shift was really gradual, Kevin thought, which was probably why it was a good while before he noticed. But he did, in fact, eventually notice that Dean and Sam kept getting closer. As time went by, they went from sitting closer together to sharing a blanket; sometimes Sam would stretch out and put his feet across Dean’s lap. It wasn’t unusual for them to make quiet comments to each other (presumably about the movie they were watching), but one night Kevin looked over when he heard them whispering and noticed that Sam’s lips were actually lingering by Dean’s ear long enough for them to brush against Dean’s skin. He did a double-take, because unusually affectionate or not, that was just over the line, like, over any line he could think of. Just that one incident had Kevin questioning what the story was, and he found himself sneaking glances at the two of them more often. Now that he knew what he was looking for, it was glaringly obvious. The way they looked at each other, how their knees seemed to always be touching, the gentle brushes of skin against skin when they moved or spoke…none of that shit was brotherly. Not even close.
Once again, Kevin found himself in the position of being shocked when he thought he’d pretty much seen it all. One night when Cas had gone to bed early, he looked over at Dean and Sam - they were under a blanket, but their hands were on one of Sam’s knees, very clearly linked together. He couldn’t stop himself this time from saying something about it - even though the only thing that came out of his mouth was, “Uh…are you holding hands over there?” The atmosphere in the room changed instantly. They both placed their hands on top of the blanket, separately, and put a couple of inches between them. Sam was the one who responded to him, though.
“I’m, uh, sorry if you’re uncomfortable, obviously we don’t, you know - we’re not exactly open about, um, this whole…thing”, he trailed off, looking unsure how to continue.
“Uncomfortable? Dude, you two are, like, totally up to not-brother-like action. How would it even be possible for me to not be uncomfortable with that?”
Dean had his eyes firmly on the carpet, and Sam looked like Kevin had just hurt his feelings. Like he was supposed to just think it was fine for them to be, well, whatever it was that they were. The word for it made him so uneasy that he didn’t even want to think it.
Probably because Sam had the sad puppy eyes going, Dean decided to jump in. “Look man, I know. I think we’ve been getting a little too comfortable. Normally we’ve always put a whole lot of effort into not letting it look like…well, like what it is. I get it, and I really am sorry. I know neither of us can make you un-know anything, but I swear we’ll be more careful.”
Not sure what else could possibly be said at that point, Kevin just got up and left the room, slammed the door, got into his bed and tried to fall asleep. He could hear Sam and Dean talking and then had a horrifying thought - how could he never have heard them…ugh. He guessed his room being on another level and the two of them making an attempt to be quiet explained that. Against his initial reaction, he found himself starting to feel guilty. He figured he really had hurt Sam’s feelings, and probably Dean’s, too. After everything that had happened (and that was only what Kevin knew about, he was sure there was plenty of other horrible shit he had no idea about), who was he to judge? He didn’t stay in his room long, and when he got back downstairs, Dean and Sam looked pretty damn surprised to see him standing there.
“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to be a dick, it’s just - well, it’s not the kind of shit you find out every day, especially about people you thought you knew pretty fucking well.”
“You do, Kevin”, Sam replied. “Now you know something new about us, but that doesn’t change anything else, not really. I know this isn’t easy to accept, and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t accept it, if you got the hell out of here and never talked to us again. But I figure if nothing else we’ve ever done to you has made you reject us, this is pretty unlikely to do it either. Dean meant what he said, though, we’ll pay attention, we’ll be more careful, like we always have been before. I don’t want you being grossed out or anything.” He sounded sincerely apologetic, and maybe even guilty.
“Dude, no. That’s not what I came down here to - what I mean is, I don’t want to see you two making out or anything”, internally, he shuddered at the thought of it, “but it’s wrong for me to think any less of either of you because I know…something I didn’t know before. It’s fine, okay? I’m not going anywhere and you’re the ones letting me stay in your home. You shouldn’t have to hide shit from the freeloader upstairs.”
“You’re our friend, Kevin, not a freeloader”, said Dean, quietly.
“Yeah, well, okay, I really am going to bed now. I just figured I should say that.” He went back to his room without giving them a chance to respond. There was nothing else to say, anyway.
Dean admitted, “I think he’s still not really okay with it.”
“He doesn’t have to be”, said Sam. “It’s not like we’ve ever gone around feeling each other up in front of people. You have to admit, though, it’s a little easier not having to hide it from the people we freaking live with.”
*****
With a grimace, Dean said, “Well, at least we never had to make any effort with our other roommate.”
Chapter Two