#sam is also here

[chocolando]

I find sastiel interesting as a concept but Dean and Cas are so crazy about each other, it’s become hard for me to see them with anyone else

[thekingslover]

(soulmate au)

Dean doesn’t dream often, but when he does, he dreams of messy hair and a wrinkled ill-fitting trench coat. The dream’s recurring, and each time, the face gets clearer. High cheekbones, strong jawline. A pair of sad, blue eyes.

His favorite dreams are when they guy laughs, all teeth and gums, with crinkles by his eyes. Dean wakes with a mirroring smile on his own lips - until he reaches into the space beside him and finds it empty.

Dean doesn’t totally understand why he keeps dreaming of the same guy, and he’s too afraid to do much research about it, afraid that learning too much might make the dreams stop.

One day, he has too much to drink and asks Sam, “What does it mean when someone has the same dream all the time?”

Sam’s in college, he should know stuff. But he shrugs as he says, “Maybe your brain’s trying to resolve some problem.”

Dean knows that’s not right. He can’t explain why. Just a feeling in his gut. “It’s not a problem, though, it’s a person.”

“A person?” Sam asks. When Dean nods, he watches Dean close as he says, “Someone you know?”

“No.”

Sam frowns in that worried-Sam way. Dean sighs, knowing now he shouldn’t have brought this up.

“Maybe you’re lonely,” Sam says, and after that, though they already schedule a dinner weekly together, Sam starts inviting Dean over three or four times a week.

It’s nice.

It doesn’t stop the dreams.

*

Months pass. Dean accepts the dreams as part of his life now. He looks forward to them.

He can see his dream-guy clearly now. The slump of his shoulders. The line of his nose. His pink lips.

But though he looks forward to the dreams, they also leave him with a sense of emptiness - a longing, for this man, for that smile, for a touch he’s never felt.

Whenever he reached out in the dreams, he woke up. He has since stopped trying.

“You haven’t dated anyone in a while,” Sam tells him. “Maybe you should try to meet someone.”

So Dean does. He tries, anyway. But every pair of eyes he looks into aren’t quite the right shade of blue. Every laugh isn’t gummy enough, or the lines are all wrong. Where’s the overcoat? Where’s the backwards tie?

Dean stops trying, after a while.

“I’m waiting,” he tells Sam.

“Waiting for what?” Sam asks.

Dean doesn’t have an answer.

*

It’s any given Thursday, totally normal in every way.

Dean’s holding a bag of groceries, walking from the checkout line to his car. The doors of the grocery store slide open, and in walks Dean’s dream guy, wrinkled overcoat, backwards tie, messy hair, too-blue eyes - here, now, beside the line of shopping carts and under the florescent lights.

He glances at Dean and stops dead in his tracks. Those eyes widen and Dean’s suddenly drowning in a pair of oceans.

“It’s you,” the guy says.

Dean pinches himself. Winces. That was pain, this is definitely real.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Dean takes a step closer.

The guy stays still, staring. “Those freckles...”

“But I dreamed you,” Dean says.

“I dreamed you, too.”

“That shouldn’t be possible,” Dean says.

“No.” The guy licks his lips. “Would you -”

“God, yes.” Dean’s grip tightens on the grocery bag.

The guy starts to smile, a shy thing that makes Dean’s heart threaten to leap from his chest.

“You don’t know what I was going to ask,” the guy says.

“Doesn’t matter,” Dean says. “My answer holds.” He’d do anything for this guy, knows that already to the core of his being. Although he’s secretly hoping he didn’t sign up for a murder spree or something.

The guy smiles wider, gummy, and those crinkles form at the corner of his eyes.

Dean’s crunching the carton of eggs under his grip and could not care at all.

“How about dinner?” the guy says.

“See?” Dean says. “I told you the answer would be yes.”

“You did.” That smile could melt glaciers. “I’m Cas.”

Cas? Cas. Yes, it fits. It’s perfect.

“I’m Dean.” Dean holds out his hand. Cas takes it.

His hands are warm and real and alive.

“Hello, Dean. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

[chocolando]

Thinking about how at the end of s5, after Lucifer beat the shit outta Dean and is about to kill him, Dean’s all bloody unable to fight back and he’s so vulnerable and wants his brother back and implores for him to still be there and that’s what helps Sam come back to himself.

And how in s8, after brainwashed Castiel beats the fuck out of Dean is about to kill him and Dean’s on his knees and begging for his friend to be there, and how the bloody vulnerability is what snaps Cas back to himself.

And how in s10, after Dean beats the holiness out of Cas, and he’s sprawled on the floor, at Dean’s—who’s affected by the bloodthirsty curse—mercy and still calls out to him and it lets Dean assuage the mark.

Just thinking about it.