Work Text:
His chest burns. There’s something like fire ripping through it, and Sam remembers the feeling of being burned, remembers it even decades far removed, the sick sizzle of flesh. It’s hard to draw breath. It feels like there’s a lead weight on his chest, heavy and growing heavier. He can hear the weak sounds of his own gasping.
He can hear Dean’s voice—his son’s voice—steady and measured. He feels a flare of pride. He did that. For all his fear, he raised him, this man with a sure and steady voice touching the back of his hand. Fearless and strong, better than he or his brother ever were, destined to go so far beyond them—no gods or fate, nothing but the life he chooses for himself. He finally did something right.
Raising a son has made him understand his brother more in some ways, less in others. He sees the cracks between father and brother, friend and lover more clearly now. He understands better the shape of what they were, like pulling back from a TV screen you’ve only ever seen in pixels. He never would have understood the distinctions—never would have had a reason to if Dean had stuck around to see the rest of it.
There were bad nights, whiskey bottle nights yelling at the sky, calling Dean a bastard and how could you leave me, it wasn’t supposed to be like this, fuck you. It’s far away now. He had so much energy then—the anger banked for so long under cosmic threat and hit after hit, he’d had that too. Little pieces of himself he’d reclaimed in the aftermath. Party favors he’d never wanted; all he’d ever asked for was a good death.
Now he’s an old man dying in a hospital bed—in bed, Dean, can you imagine it—remembering a conversation he had with his brother long ago.
Do you think we will?
What?
Grow old.
Whole thing seems brutal, don’t it?
Dean always did have to do everything first. Show-off.
Sam feels a touch on his hand, soft and gentle, but it’s far away. He wants to tell his son it’s okay; he’s seen heaven and hell and everything in between—where he’s going; it’s fine. He means to tell him, but he’s just so tired. He rests his eyes, just for a moment. It’s so hard to lift them again. Another breath, rattling and wheezing, another—
—and one more, unlabored and easy in the clear, mountain air. He opens his eyes and sees Dean, his Dean, leaning against a railing, wearing the jacket he remembers from a hundred dreams. The sky is wide and endless, so blue it could drown them. Water babbles below. He catches his breath as Dean turns around, a wide grin slicking over his face.
“Heya, Sammy.”
His heart clenches. No one’s called him Sammy in years. Decades. He wants to cry and laugh and collapse all at once, so he says the only word that matters. The only one that’s ever mattered.
“Dean.”
Dean wraps him in a tight grip, and it’s just like before—he smells like Dean. Like the Impala, like smoke, like sweat and salt and goddamn gas station burritos. Sam buries his face in Dean’s neck and breathes deep, filling his lungs in long, snuffling gasps.
“Missed you,” he says, muffled against Dean’s collar.
Dean slides his hand up to the back of Sam’s neck, cradling his head, his thumb tracing a soothing line down the side of Sam’s neck. “Missed you too, kiddo.”
“I’m older than you now,” Sam murmurs.
Dean laughs, letting him go with a last clap on the back—letting him go, but not going far, staying close enough to trail his fingers along the edge of Sam’s sleeve, like he’s afraid Sam might disappear if he blinks, or maybe like he’s just missed the touch. Like he can feel this, at last. “You wish.”
Sam laughs. He doesn’t—not really. Dean doesn’t know what it’s like to be the last one left—not for real. Not for good. A Winchester left alone is a terrible thing—but it all feels so far away now with his brother beside him, bopping his head and tapping out familiar beats on the steering wheel.
Sam slides into the passenger side of the Impala, and it feels like just yesterday—the seat remembers him just the same, the cushion perfectly contoured around his body after years riding shotgun. Like Dean, it smells the same—leather and gunpowder and days-old sweat. The AC rattles with old Legos, and there’s a familiar stain creeping up the side of the footwell—the time they got into a fight with a rawhead, and it nearly took his foot off; they never could get all the blood out. He remembers.
He closes his eyes and breathes.
Dean looks over at him. “You okay?”
The birds chirp outside. Somewhere, far away, a family is grieving him. He thinks of his son with a pinprick of pain. He thinks of his first son—the one who rebuilt heaven in his own image and taught him how. His heart feels full to bursting. He smiles, and it feels weightless for the first time in years.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m good, now.”
“Well, alright.”
Dean turns the keys in the ignition, and the engine roars to life, familiar as the back of his own hand. They burn rubber into an unknown horizon, and Sam closes his eyes and feels the miles go by.
He doesn’t know the way, but Dean will get them there. He always does.