dean doesn't do dates. what he does do is bring sam to the drive through and splurges on him with his recent "winnings", has some fireworks packed in the back of the car and stocked up on drinks and it's nostalgic if anything.
he brings sam under the stars, they sit on the impala for most of the night and his baby brother laughs like dean hasn't heard in a long time and they let the fireworks fly and finally relax.
he can tell sam wants to say something about it, but they both keep quiet anyway, alone but not lonely.
they take a nap in the car, because the weather is nice and the nearest motel is an hour away, and sam says a quiet thank you from the backseat. dean smiles to himself, content.
he doesn't do dates, but he thinks he does a pretty good job keeping sam happy.
Part of him wants to believe Lucifer loved him. It's a childish, needy thing in his chest that haunts Sam at night.
It's a whisper in his ear, when things get really bad and he fights the urge to press into his hand and make it dissappear.
It would be easier, Sam thinks, if he loved him back.
If he gave in wholeheartedly, if he let himself enjoy it, become a glorified doll underneath him. Some nights that's all he wants, to be held down, to be held close, to be loved in a way only the devil knew.
It's difficult to stop once he starts, his thoughts drowning deeper and deeper until he can't help but do something about it, to reach under his own clothes and tug at his body until he's completely out of it, burying Lucifer's name and his tears into the pillow.
established au: sam makes the choice to go to stanford
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sam has been thinking lately.
the winter passes around him all too slow, a small reprieve from having to switch schools thanks to the holidays and then his final few months of high school could be over with. what happens after, sam isn’t quite sure. but the question keeps sneaking up on him when he digs another grave, when he fights with dean for first shower even when they both know the water isn’t going to be much warmer than the weather outside, when he can’t sleep late at night and he glances at dean’s turned back and suddenly a pit forms in his stomach.
what if high school didn’t have to be the end for him?
what if his graduation didn’t have to be some weird initiation into full time hunting? what if he could simply pack his things one day and leave, no longer a son or a brother, but a man. his own person. the longer he thinks about it, the more he idolizes it.
he imagines his own apartment, his own space with an actual bedroom and a functioning oven, his own bathroom and a shower he never has to endure being cold again. he imagines having his own money, spending it on random things he didn’t have to worry about fitting in the car or in a bag.
the more he thinks about it, the more dean irritates him.
dean chews so loudly, he makes the weirdest jokes(how did he ever find him funny), he hits on everything even remotely female within a 20ft radius, he yells at sam constantly. god the yelling is the worst part, it’s like he can’t prove his point without needing to make himself look tougher, without trying to intimidate him. it comes to a head when sam makes a joke about frat parties they could be attending and dean gives him a look so scorching he worries he’s about to be beat. and isn’t that a sobering thought.
sam doesn’t figure it all out overnight. it’s only been a week, not unlike the layover period they sometimes had between hunts, but this time it’s different, like they’re gasping for air, refusing to let go. sam wants to believe dean will stick to their agreement: no hunts, drinks only on occasion and they leave the credit card schemes behind for good-
but it’s not as easy as it sounded in sam’s head. as cabin fever builds up and the job and school search doesn’t go as smoothly as expected, sam starts second guessing everything. every thought, every look in the mirror. everything starts to be a bit panic inducing, now that his need for normality is becoming real and not just an impossible wish in his mind. he can't fuck it up, he doesn't want dean to tell him it's not going to work out and it being true.
he tries to remember how it was with amelia, but that just brings up painful memories he rather not think about, and he finds himself rotting in bed after a particularly frustrating morning, having slammed shut his laptop just moments ago. his hair is nearly at his shoulders now, a little wavy at the ends and it keeps going in his face when he sulks into his pillow.
it reminds him of this one girl, when he’d been 15, pushing their heads together and telling their friends how he was like her long lost twin or something. both of them born in the same month, same dark hair and light eyes. sam wonders if her reflection still looks like his when he brushes his teeth before bed, spitting into the sink and wiping his mouth just to stop there and look for a bit. maybe bangs would be good to try again?
and isn’t that one hell of a sobering thought, when he cuts the front strands of his hair just bellow his brows and realizes just how feminine it looks. how feminine he looks. the weirdest part about it is that sam doesn’t even feel particularly bad about it. it almost feels right.
and then he makes the mistake of cutting his bangs just a little higher.
Transfem Sam is nervous as hell about coming out to Dean. They were already doing the incest thing which is weird enough and this just felt like another thing to add to the Sam-is-a-freak pile. She can’t imagine any other scenario than Dean being disgusted and never touching her again, or asking her to not go through with any of it. She was worried she would bury that part of herself for him.
Dean can tell his sibling is hiding something, and eventually asks “Don’t you trust me?”
Sam comes out to Dean and she’s sick to her stomach but the first thing he says is “…Does that mean I get to call you my wife now?”
may i add an alternative- dean who doesn't really "approve" at first
he thinks he's losing sam more and more, that the sammy he has in his head(the pure younger brother hero-worshiping him) is dying all over again and can't help but think that sam changing like this is never gonna stop freaking him out.
but then, after full on mourning sam like she's dead, he sees that sam was never really the delusion he clung onto and maybe it's time to let that part of himself go, let those versions of them die out and finally love sam for who she is and who she always has been: her own person, first and foremost.
and so he buys sam something small, a perfume or a girly magazine or something very stereotypical that gets his point across without having to talk too much and tells sam he's proud of her.
sam is so happy she could fucking cry, but just laughs instead, shoving dean playfully for his corny gift and saying a quiet thank you.
post s11, in a different world where the british don't exist, sam and dean pull themselves away for a while, hunting less and less and spending more time cooped up in the bunker.
in this period of their lives, sam starts to heal, starts to realize that school might be worth giving another chance and that maybe, just maybe, they can finally leave the hunting life behind.
dean is scared sam is planning to leave him, but sam doesn't want that, not after all they went through together.
and through all this, sam starts to realize something else, something that has been nagging under his skin for years. he might not be a 'he' after all.
it all starts with dean saying something unexpected, as most of sam's revelations do.
Part 1- Dean:
It all starts with an argument, like most things did with them.
Sam rages on about Dean's drinking, Dean leaves fuming and slamming doors, driving off as far as the nearest bar. And it's bad, bad enough that Dean doesn't stop second guessing himself for hours, every drink he orders a rebellion, every shot he drinks down done with guilt and anger.
'He wants to quit.', the thought won't leave him, no matter how much he tries to drown it. Because deep down, he knows the look on Sam's face, trying to ease them into something Dean would push against if told directly. Treating him like a goddamn toddler.
Sam comes to get him eventually, because they've lost each other too many times to count, and Dean protests the whole way to the car but doesn't fight, or push him away. He leans into Sam like a crippled man, and maybe he is, in a way. But Sam is warm and firm against him and no matter how much they fight Dean will always be grateful for that.
The drive to the bunker feels long, stretched out in his blurry vision and slowing thoughts, and his hand aimlessly reaches out to the drivers seat, to Sam. The faint light from the road softens his features, and Dean can't help but think about how beautiful he is, how gentle and smart and too good for him. Always has been.
When he wakes up the next morning, with possibly the worst hangover of his life, he doesn't remember how he got to bed, or why dread builds up the more he thinks about seeing Sam again.
The case Sam hands him is an olive branch he doesn't feel deserving of, the time they spend researching filled with nothing but silence. Dean can't help but go to the fridge, habitual, but he doesn't bring the drink back out, leaning right there against the counter with the fridge door beeping and the bottleneck nearly clinking against his teeth.
Sam kept giving him these glances the whole day, baby brother need for approval, but there's no fixing the crack in the dam, not when they're alone like this. Not when for the first time in a long time the world is quiet enough for Dean to think. After all this, to lose Sam again would be one blow too many. To see Sam living normal, phone calls only on holidays and birthdays, that sort of thing; it would kill him, he learned that a long time ago.
"You left the door open.", Sam's voice startles him more than it should, his senses all dulled from the lack of hunts, and he mumbles out a vague answer before kicking it shut. Sam just stands in the entryway for a while, curled into himself and Dean aches.
"I'm not leaving.", Sam says, as if he could look behind his eyes and see his thoughts written there, "But you're right-", he says, and Dean still feels the punch of it even though he saw it coming, "I don't want us hunting anymore."
Us.
Dean smiles, a selfish part of him screaming at him to tear Sam a new one for even suggesting it but he shuts it down. Because Sam's never said 'us' before. And that changes everything.
Part 2- Sam:
The words hang on his tongue, heavy and important and Sam tells himself he's just waiting for the right moment.
That night plays in his head over and over, the heat of his brothers fingers combing through his hair a brand on the nape of his neck, "You're so beautiful...", Dean had said, words slurred and honest, the smile on his face so fond that Sam nearly cried, all the frustration and anger melting down into something fragile.
Sam hadn't thought of himself as anything good since Dean died for the first time.
Sam Winchester, the addict, the boy with the demon blood, Satan's vessel, the soulless killer, the selfish kid brother of a hero; that's who he'd been, since then. Cut and beaten and bruised, tortured and violated and healed over and over. Was the skin pulled around his soul even his anymore?
Looking in the mirror had been hard the last few years and now, Sam can barely recognize the reflection. He prods and tugs his skin, considers for a moment chopping the hair touching down to his shoulders, greasy and unkempt. The shower churns on, old pipes singing with the near-boiling hot water, ringing in his ears.
As a kid, Sam hated most guys in the middle-of-nowhere public schools he found himself in. They were either bullies, or idiots, or both. Sam wasn't like that, kept his backpack tidy, didn't scribble on the desks and walls and on the faces on napping peers. He raised his hand in class and beamed when he got the teachers acknowledgment and praise. Sam misses that kid like he’s a different person, dead and buried and grieved by a 'normal' family.
"I love you so much...", Dean had mumbled, his words carrying a lifetime of weight, a million different meanings. Sam's heart had raced as fast as his thoughts, the weight of his brothers hand on his neck both a comfort and a shock, a light at the end of the tunnel. Before he could say anything, Dean had fallen asleep, slumped in his seat and Sam wishes it hadn’t happened like that, but it doesn't change his mind. Doesn't change that he wants to leave hunting behind now more than ever. At least this time, maybe he can convince Dean to do the same, to choose him over the world one last time.
And if Dean's words float between them, unacknowledged but known for the rest of their lives, that's a sacrifice Sam's willing to make.
established wincest to me is sam and dean whispering i love you's in the middle of the night when they're teens, holding each other close after something bad happens or when they've cooled off from a big argument or fight.
this love only makes the split off during the stanford era more devastating, they're heartbroken and angry and hold enough regret to fill a water tank. dean can't help but feel like he pushed sam away and never really understood him, like sam never really loved him or wanted to stay with him. sam feels misunderstood and guilty and so fucking angry that dean didn't help, didn't stand up for him or join him or at least see where he was coming from. dean wasn't proud of him and that hurts.
when they join back up in s1, it's dean that reaches out and comforts sam and is there for him no matter how much sam tries to push him away. no matter how much sam insists that he's fine.
and sam feels guilty about it, feels like he's replacing jess, like he's giving into this because he's desperate and lonely and misses her so he needs someone to fill the void. but then, when dean tucks him under his chin and wraps him in his arms tight and holds him close, sam realizes that what dean and him have is more than romance or brotherhood, it's something comforting and real and he needs it and that shouldn't be a bad thing. jess would probably want that for him, wouldn't she?
so sam gives into it, takes it a step further, kisses dean one night when they're in bed and doesn't look back, tries to erase all the baggage from before that moment and clean the slate for this spark that was always shimmering beneath the surface.
dean asks him if he's sure only once and sam says yes.
their relationship is rocky for a while after that. dean still hooks up with girls and doesn't say anything about it, doesn't excuse himself or apologize. sam doesn't ask him to stop or to close off their relationship because he doesn't see the point in it. dean will be his no matter how many girls pique his interest. they carry on knowing that they crossed a line that they can't back away from, say quiet i love you's in the night and during really bad hunts, kiss each others wounds and makeout when they're particularly wired or can't sleep.
and it works for them, makes them happier than they have been in years.
