Part Two: You Only Feel It When It’s Lost
Dean wakes up as first light comes in around the blinds. His mouth tastes like moldy sandpaper, his face feels the same, and he’s stiff all over from lying in one position all night. His head should be pounding with a helluva hangover, but it’s not, which he doesn’t deserve. He’s used to drinking at least that much. He’s thirsty and he has to pee, but otherwise his body absorbed last night’s debauchery like it was business as usual.
Four shots and five beers isn’t even that bad, all things considered.
Six beers, counting that last one he guzzled just before they left the bar. Sam didn’t even drink one.
Sam.
Dean rolls over. Sam’s a still, silent log on the other bed, back to him, covers pulled up over his shoulders so all Dean can see is his dark mop of hair.
He didn’t even take his boots off last night, Dean realizes as he looks down at himself. Sam must’ve covered him up with the bedspread off his own bed. Left him a glass of water on the bedside table.
Sam lies still and silent as Dean sits up, drinks the water, removes his jacket and boots, and heads to the bathroom. He pees and gives his teeth a good brushing as the shower heats up, then removes his clothes and leaves them on the floor before climbing into the shower. As he soaps himself up, he considers jerking off, but Sam’s face keeps coming to mind, his sharp nose and cheekbones, his soft lips and eyes.
That other Dean might jerk off to thoughts of his brother, but Dean’s not doing that.
What the hell difference does it make?
The little voice in his head sounds like his own, but he imagines it’s that other Dean, the one who doesn’t protect his little brother from his own pervy thoughts like he should.
What happens when you realize you’re stuck here, with the Sam sleeping in the other room, and you’ll never get back where you belong? Huh? You just gonna keep pretending you don’t have feelings for your little brother, you sicko? Who are you trying to protect now, huh? This dude isn't even your brother.
For a moment, Dean wonders if he’s got that other Dean literally inside him. Like maybe when they drove through the universe portal, the two Deans got fused somehow. Maybe the two Sams, too.
Oh, that’s just crazy, he scolds himself. Stop thinking like that if you wanna fix this.
And he does wanna fix this. He does wanna get back to the way things were before, Michael-trapped-in-his-head and all.
When he emerges from the bathroom, towel wrapped firmly around his waist, Sam’s already up and gone.
“Gone running.” The note on Dean’s bed states. “Will bring breakfast. S.”
Not “love, Sammy.” Not that Sam would ever sign a note that way, but this Sam would be extra careful not to, after last night.
As Dean gets dressed, he thinks about how Sam must feel, knowing that Dean isn’t his Dean. As sick as it might be, Sam and his Dean had an intimate relationship. To have it confirmed that Dean isn’t his brother must be pretty devastating. Like losing your husband as well as your brother.
For all intents and purposes, Sam -- Dean’s Sam -- was the closest thing to a life partner Dean was ever likely to have. They didn’t need the sex or intimacy to feel as close to each other as two people could possibly be.
It was better that way. Less gross. Fewer bodily fluids exchanged. All that.
Besides. It’s not like they were missing anything. At least in the last couple of years, Dean felt pretty confident that Sam loved him as much as anybody could, sex or not. And Sam knew Dean loved him more than anyone, more than anything. Dean didn’t have to prove it to him like that.
No, Dean’s completely satisfied with the way his and his Sam’s relationship was, exactly the way it was. And he’s pretty sure Sam felt the same way.
Dean needs to get his mind out of the gutter and start solving their multiverse problem.
Like yesterday.
//**//**//
“Hey.”
Sam arrives with a bag of greasy breakfast sandwiches and two cups of coffee, and it’s almost normal.
“Did you try praying to Cas yet?”
Dean had almost forgotten. Since forever, he’s been used to calling Cas on the phone, knows Sam calls him all the time because they’d been sharing their concern for Dean and his archangel problem.
“After breakfast,” Dean assures him. “I promise.”
Sam doesn’t act weird, just nods as he puts the food on the table and heads into the bathroom to shower and get dressed.
After shoving a couple of breakfast sandwiches down his gullet, followed by the hot black coffee Sam knows he likes and more water, Dean goes out to the parking lot to try to call Cas the old-fashioned way, by praying, followed by the phone.
Nothing.
When Sam comes out of the bathroom already dressed, Dean doesn’t even spare a glance. Well, maybe a glance. Deliberately not looking at Sam would be weird.
“Anything?” Sam asks as he sits on his bed to pull on his socks and boots.
“Nah.” Dean shakes his head. “Didn’t really expect anything.”
“At least you tried.”
Sam sounds so supportive, so mature. Dean’s been depending on that, lately, with all the shit going down with Michael. It’s comforting.
They spend the day exploring Lincoln, looking for anything that might jog a memory of what they were doing here two days previous, even though it’s possible they never came here in the first place.
There’s nothing.
Sam wants to drive to Sioux Falls, see if Jody Mills still lives there, even though she’s not answering her phone. It’s only four hours away, so Dean agrees, listens to Sam talk about other places they should visit, all over the country, just to see for themselves if there’s anything familiar left anywhere, anything even vaguely supernatural.
Two hours out of town and with two hours to go, Dean can’t help asking the question that’s been nagging at him since the previous evening.
“So you never gave me the answer to your last question.”
“You lost the bet,” Sam reminds him without missing a beat. “You owe me twenty bucks.”
“You know I’m good for it.”
Sam snorts.
“So?” Dean urges, against all his better instincts. He’s too curious for his own good, always has been.
“So what?” Sam plays dumb, the bitch.
“So when was that first kiss? Huh?”
“None of your damn business,” Sam snaps, and really, he’s right. Dean shouldn’t push this. But he can’t help himself.
“Let me guess. A couple of weeks after I got you at school? Maybe right after I woke you up when you had one of those nightmares about Jess?”
“Dean, I told you, it’s none of your business. It wasn’t you.” But Sam’s irritation only makes Dean push harder.
“You had a big old crush on me in high school but you never let on,” Dean guesses. “Or you let on but I wouldn’t let you do anything about it because I was trying to protect you.”
“Now you’re just writing fan fiction,” Sam grumbles.
“What? You didn’t have a crush on me in high school? Why not? When I kept bringing girls home to make out with and you were right there, sometimes even in the same room? That didn’t turn you on a little? I was pretty adorable, after all.”
“Oh my god, shut up!”
Dean chuckles. “Yeah, of course, it did. Teenagers are horny all the time. Don’t think I didn’t know. I was always trying to make you jealous back then.”
“Dean, shut up. It wasn’t you.”
“It sure as hell was,” Dean insists, laughing. “You were so awkward and gangly and uptight. Easy pickings.”
Sam rolls his eyes, Dean can tell without even looking at him.
“That year you had your growth spurt -- how old were you? Sixteen? Seventeen? Grew six inches over the summer, I swear. Still shorter than me, though.”
“I was sixteen,” Sam says. “First time I pinned you down and you had to tap out.”
A rush of heat to Dean’s lower gut reminds him exactly how that felt, how they stopped sparring after that because Dean didn’t need Sam feeling his boner and thinking anything.
Dean chuckles darkly, assumes Sam remembers exactly how that felt, too.
“You sure were a prissy little bitch,” he mutters.
“Not so little after that,” Sam reminds him.
Dean raises his eyebrows, shoots Sam a look, and there’s that smug look Dean was expecting. The kid knows exactly how it made Dean feel, being pinned down by his suddenly same-sized little brother.
Dean flushes hot from his chest to his ears.
“You were so eager for any little scrap of dirty talk in those days, any description of whatever went down between me and a girl,” Dean goes on, keeping the advantage in the discussion because he is, after all, the big brother. “You ate up every detail, and I was more than happy to share. I was educating you. Felt like it was my job. You deserved to know, even if you were never gonna use it.”
“Dean, what are you getting at?” Sam huffs out a frustrated breath. “We were young and horny. Doesn’t mean anything.”
“So I’m right, aren’t I?” Dean insists. “It didn’t happen until after I picked you up from school, like you said. After we were both grown up, consenting adults.”
Dean’s so relieved he wants to stop the car, grab onto Sam and hug him or something.
Sam shakes his head. “I’m not letting you off the hook that easy, Dean. I knew, even as a horny teenager. I knew how you felt. Hell, it’s part of the reason I left for Stanford in the first place. Wasn’t gonna let something stupid happen between us. I knew you’d never forgive yourself.”
Dean’s relief is instantly replaced by deep, crushing guilt. He drove Sam away. It was his fault Sam left the family. Of course it was. Deep down, Dean had always known.
Then he’s reminded: he never would’ve had this particular conversation with his Sam. This subject would never have come up, because this isn’t how his Sam felt.
“So you felt the same,” he suggests tentatively. “You left because you knew something could happen, because you felt the same way.”
Sam throws his hands up. “What does it matter now? That was a lifetime ago, Dean. I don’t even know why you’re bringing it up, all these years later.”
“Because it happened differently for us,” Dean blurts. “I always felt like I’d driven you away, like it was my fault you left us, but not because of what you just said. There just wasn’t any way it could be that. But I still felt like a failure, like I didn’t do my job to keep you safe.”
“I was just going to college, Dean,” Sam reminds him. “I wasn’t leaving you. Going to college is normal in most families. You and Dad could’ve come to visit me anytime.”
“Could we? Would you have answered your phone? Huh? Or your door, for that matter?”
Sam shakes his head. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. “Anyway, you didn’t have to stalk me like some kind of deranged fan.”
Dean feels a quick flush of shame before realizing that those “drive-by” check-ups that he and their dad had engineered, whether they were really in the area or not, were kind of creepy.
“Well, we didn’t feel exactly welcome,” he grumbles. “It took me hours to work up the courage to break into your place that night after Dad went missing.”
He can feel Sam staring at him in the darkened car, thinks about all the time Sam has spent staring at his profile. Can’t help hoping Sam likes what he sees. Hates himself for the thought.
“I can’t even express how glad I was to see you,” Sam says finally, voice unexpectedly soft. “You didn’t even have to ask. I was ready to go with you, stay with you, from that moment on. Azazel didn’t have to kill Jessica. I would’ve come back to you. I would’ve followed you anywhere.”
Dean sucks in a breath, tries to prevent letting it sound like a gasp. He’s beyond speechless at Sam’s confession. Never expected to hear him say something like that.
Sam snorts. “Even the Woman in White knew,” he says, irony twisting his tone into something mocking and bitter. “She could tell I’d already been unfaithful to Jess, in my heart. She could see what I couldn’t even admit to myself.”
Dean’s heart leaps in his chest. “Is that true, Sam? Were you already planning to come away with me permanently?”
Sam sighs. “You know I was. From the moment I laid eyes on you that night. You were like a powerful drug I couldn’t resist. I could never leave you, after that. Never did.”
Dean’s fingers twitch on the seat between them. He longs to let his hand slide across to Sam’s thigh, let it rest there, but he knows he can’t. He hasn’t earned the right.
“Well, I sure don’t remember it that way,” he mutters, feeling grumpy and sorry for himself. “The way I remember it, seemed like you might’ve told me to get lost or get dead if I’d knocked on your door that night. I had to break in just to get you to talk to me.”
Sam huffs out a breath. “That’s just your old insecurities talking,” he says.
Dean goes on. “For most of the year we spent looking for Dad, it seemed like you were itching to be done with the mission so you could get back to college. Back to your normal life.”
“Maybe I didn’t express it very well back then, but I already knew I could never leave you again. Especially once it was just you and me, without Dad. Like you said the night Jessica died, we made a good team.” Sam snorts. “Understatement.”
Dean shakes his head. “You sure had a funny way of showing it.”
Sam’s quiet for a moment, and Dean glances at him, can see him thinking. Overthinking.
“You know I’m not him, right?” Sam says finally. “Your Sam, he must’ve kept a pretty tight rein on his emotions. Never let you in much.”
Dean thinks about that. “Well, we never kissed, if that’s what you mean,” he says. “That never would’ve occurred to us.”
Sam huffs out another breath, disbelieving. “Maybe if you had, things would’ve been different. Easier.”
Dean feels his hackles go up, defensive on behalf of his brother.
“How easier?” he demands. “You never dying easier? Me never going to Hell easier? You never taking up with Ruby easier? Lucifer not riding you into the Cage and you not coming back soulless easier? How?”
Sam says nothing, and Dean feels like a jerk for rubbing it in, but he can’t help it.
“Doesn’t seem to me like all the kissing and whatever else you and your brother got up to made a lick o’ difference, Sam,” he snaps. “At least, not where it counts.”
“It’s easier now,” Sam says quietly. “Recently. We talk more. Don’t hide things from each other like we used to. We’ve learned how to communicate better.”
“Well, bully for you,” Dean growls. He’s unreasonably angry, maybe even a little jealous.
But the truth is, things have been better with his Sam lately, too. Sam and Dean are more on the same page than they’ve ever been, after everything they’ve been through.
Maybe there’s not that much difference between the two sets of Sam and Dean.
Maybe sex doesn’t make much difference in their relationship, one way or the other.
PART THREE
Four shots and five beers isn’t even that bad, all things considered.
Six beers, counting that last one he guzzled just before they left the bar. Sam didn’t even drink one.
Sam.
Dean rolls over. Sam’s a still, silent log on the other bed, back to him, covers pulled up over his shoulders so all Dean can see is his dark mop of hair.
He didn’t even take his boots off last night, Dean realizes as he looks down at himself. Sam must’ve covered him up with the bedspread off his own bed. Left him a glass of water on the bedside table.
Sam lies still and silent as Dean sits up, drinks the water, removes his jacket and boots, and heads to the bathroom. He pees and gives his teeth a good brushing as the shower heats up, then removes his clothes and leaves them on the floor before climbing into the shower. As he soaps himself up, he considers jerking off, but Sam’s face keeps coming to mind, his sharp nose and cheekbones, his soft lips and eyes.
That other Dean might jerk off to thoughts of his brother, but Dean’s not doing that.
What the hell difference does it make?
The little voice in his head sounds like his own, but he imagines it’s that other Dean, the one who doesn’t protect his little brother from his own pervy thoughts like he should.
What happens when you realize you’re stuck here, with the Sam sleeping in the other room, and you’ll never get back where you belong? Huh? You just gonna keep pretending you don’t have feelings for your little brother, you sicko? Who are you trying to protect now, huh? This dude isn't even your brother.
For a moment, Dean wonders if he’s got that other Dean literally inside him. Like maybe when they drove through the universe portal, the two Deans got fused somehow. Maybe the two Sams, too.
Oh, that’s just crazy, he scolds himself. Stop thinking like that if you wanna fix this.
And he does wanna fix this. He does wanna get back to the way things were before, Michael-trapped-in-his-head and all.
When he emerges from the bathroom, towel wrapped firmly around his waist, Sam’s already up and gone.
“Gone running.” The note on Dean’s bed states. “Will bring breakfast. S.”
Not “love, Sammy.” Not that Sam would ever sign a note that way, but this Sam would be extra careful not to, after last night.
As Dean gets dressed, he thinks about how Sam must feel, knowing that Dean isn’t his Dean. As sick as it might be, Sam and his Dean had an intimate relationship. To have it confirmed that Dean isn’t his brother must be pretty devastating. Like losing your husband as well as your brother.
For all intents and purposes, Sam -- Dean’s Sam -- was the closest thing to a life partner Dean was ever likely to have. They didn’t need the sex or intimacy to feel as close to each other as two people could possibly be.
It was better that way. Less gross. Fewer bodily fluids exchanged. All that.
Besides. It’s not like they were missing anything. At least in the last couple of years, Dean felt pretty confident that Sam loved him as much as anybody could, sex or not. And Sam knew Dean loved him more than anyone, more than anything. Dean didn’t have to prove it to him like that.
No, Dean’s completely satisfied with the way his and his Sam’s relationship was, exactly the way it was. And he’s pretty sure Sam felt the same way.
Dean needs to get his mind out of the gutter and start solving their multiverse problem.
Like yesterday.
//**//**//
“Hey.”
Sam arrives with a bag of greasy breakfast sandwiches and two cups of coffee, and it’s almost normal.
“Did you try praying to Cas yet?”
Dean had almost forgotten. Since forever, he’s been used to calling Cas on the phone, knows Sam calls him all the time because they’d been sharing their concern for Dean and his archangel problem.
“After breakfast,” Dean assures him. “I promise.”
Sam doesn’t act weird, just nods as he puts the food on the table and heads into the bathroom to shower and get dressed.
After shoving a couple of breakfast sandwiches down his gullet, followed by the hot black coffee Sam knows he likes and more water, Dean goes out to the parking lot to try to call Cas the old-fashioned way, by praying, followed by the phone.
Nothing.
When Sam comes out of the bathroom already dressed, Dean doesn’t even spare a glance. Well, maybe a glance. Deliberately not looking at Sam would be weird.
“Anything?” Sam asks as he sits on his bed to pull on his socks and boots.
“Nah.” Dean shakes his head. “Didn’t really expect anything.”
“At least you tried.”
Sam sounds so supportive, so mature. Dean’s been depending on that, lately, with all the shit going down with Michael. It’s comforting.
They spend the day exploring Lincoln, looking for anything that might jog a memory of what they were doing here two days previous, even though it’s possible they never came here in the first place.
There’s nothing.
Sam wants to drive to Sioux Falls, see if Jody Mills still lives there, even though she’s not answering her phone. It’s only four hours away, so Dean agrees, listens to Sam talk about other places they should visit, all over the country, just to see for themselves if there’s anything familiar left anywhere, anything even vaguely supernatural.
Two hours out of town and with two hours to go, Dean can’t help asking the question that’s been nagging at him since the previous evening.
“So you never gave me the answer to your last question.”
“You lost the bet,” Sam reminds him without missing a beat. “You owe me twenty bucks.”
“You know I’m good for it.”
Sam snorts.
“So?” Dean urges, against all his better instincts. He’s too curious for his own good, always has been.
“So what?” Sam plays dumb, the bitch.
“So when was that first kiss? Huh?”
“None of your damn business,” Sam snaps, and really, he’s right. Dean shouldn’t push this. But he can’t help himself.
“Let me guess. A couple of weeks after I got you at school? Maybe right after I woke you up when you had one of those nightmares about Jess?”
“Dean, I told you, it’s none of your business. It wasn’t you.” But Sam’s irritation only makes Dean push harder.
“You had a big old crush on me in high school but you never let on,” Dean guesses. “Or you let on but I wouldn’t let you do anything about it because I was trying to protect you.”
“Now you’re just writing fan fiction,” Sam grumbles.
“What? You didn’t have a crush on me in high school? Why not? When I kept bringing girls home to make out with and you were right there, sometimes even in the same room? That didn’t turn you on a little? I was pretty adorable, after all.”
“Oh my god, shut up!”
Dean chuckles. “Yeah, of course, it did. Teenagers are horny all the time. Don’t think I didn’t know. I was always trying to make you jealous back then.”
“Dean, shut up. It wasn’t you.”
“It sure as hell was,” Dean insists, laughing. “You were so awkward and gangly and uptight. Easy pickings.”
Sam rolls his eyes, Dean can tell without even looking at him.
“That year you had your growth spurt -- how old were you? Sixteen? Seventeen? Grew six inches over the summer, I swear. Still shorter than me, though.”
“I was sixteen,” Sam says. “First time I pinned you down and you had to tap out.”
A rush of heat to Dean’s lower gut reminds him exactly how that felt, how they stopped sparring after that because Dean didn’t need Sam feeling his boner and thinking anything.
Dean chuckles darkly, assumes Sam remembers exactly how that felt, too.
“You sure were a prissy little bitch,” he mutters.
“Not so little after that,” Sam reminds him.
Dean raises his eyebrows, shoots Sam a look, and there’s that smug look Dean was expecting. The kid knows exactly how it made Dean feel, being pinned down by his suddenly same-sized little brother.
Dean flushes hot from his chest to his ears.
“You were so eager for any little scrap of dirty talk in those days, any description of whatever went down between me and a girl,” Dean goes on, keeping the advantage in the discussion because he is, after all, the big brother. “You ate up every detail, and I was more than happy to share. I was educating you. Felt like it was my job. You deserved to know, even if you were never gonna use it.”
“Dean, what are you getting at?” Sam huffs out a frustrated breath. “We were young and horny. Doesn’t mean anything.”
“So I’m right, aren’t I?” Dean insists. “It didn’t happen until after I picked you up from school, like you said. After we were both grown up, consenting adults.”
Dean’s so relieved he wants to stop the car, grab onto Sam and hug him or something.
Sam shakes his head. “I’m not letting you off the hook that easy, Dean. I knew, even as a horny teenager. I knew how you felt. Hell, it’s part of the reason I left for Stanford in the first place. Wasn’t gonna let something stupid happen between us. I knew you’d never forgive yourself.”
Dean’s relief is instantly replaced by deep, crushing guilt. He drove Sam away. It was his fault Sam left the family. Of course it was. Deep down, Dean had always known.
Then he’s reminded: he never would’ve had this particular conversation with his Sam. This subject would never have come up, because this isn’t how his Sam felt.
“So you felt the same,” he suggests tentatively. “You left because you knew something could happen, because you felt the same way.”
Sam throws his hands up. “What does it matter now? That was a lifetime ago, Dean. I don’t even know why you’re bringing it up, all these years later.”
“Because it happened differently for us,” Dean blurts. “I always felt like I’d driven you away, like it was my fault you left us, but not because of what you just said. There just wasn’t any way it could be that. But I still felt like a failure, like I didn’t do my job to keep you safe.”
“I was just going to college, Dean,” Sam reminds him. “I wasn’t leaving you. Going to college is normal in most families. You and Dad could’ve come to visit me anytime.”
“Could we? Would you have answered your phone? Huh? Or your door, for that matter?”
Sam shakes his head. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. “Anyway, you didn’t have to stalk me like some kind of deranged fan.”
Dean feels a quick flush of shame before realizing that those “drive-by” check-ups that he and their dad had engineered, whether they were really in the area or not, were kind of creepy.
“Well, we didn’t feel exactly welcome,” he grumbles. “It took me hours to work up the courage to break into your place that night after Dad went missing.”
He can feel Sam staring at him in the darkened car, thinks about all the time Sam has spent staring at his profile. Can’t help hoping Sam likes what he sees. Hates himself for the thought.
“I can’t even express how glad I was to see you,” Sam says finally, voice unexpectedly soft. “You didn’t even have to ask. I was ready to go with you, stay with you, from that moment on. Azazel didn’t have to kill Jessica. I would’ve come back to you. I would’ve followed you anywhere.”
Dean sucks in a breath, tries to prevent letting it sound like a gasp. He’s beyond speechless at Sam’s confession. Never expected to hear him say something like that.
Sam snorts. “Even the Woman in White knew,” he says, irony twisting his tone into something mocking and bitter. “She could tell I’d already been unfaithful to Jess, in my heart. She could see what I couldn’t even admit to myself.”
Dean’s heart leaps in his chest. “Is that true, Sam? Were you already planning to come away with me permanently?”
Sam sighs. “You know I was. From the moment I laid eyes on you that night. You were like a powerful drug I couldn’t resist. I could never leave you, after that. Never did.”
Dean’s fingers twitch on the seat between them. He longs to let his hand slide across to Sam’s thigh, let it rest there, but he knows he can’t. He hasn’t earned the right.
“Well, I sure don’t remember it that way,” he mutters, feeling grumpy and sorry for himself. “The way I remember it, seemed like you might’ve told me to get lost or get dead if I’d knocked on your door that night. I had to break in just to get you to talk to me.”
Sam huffs out a breath. “That’s just your old insecurities talking,” he says.
Dean goes on. “For most of the year we spent looking for Dad, it seemed like you were itching to be done with the mission so you could get back to college. Back to your normal life.”
“Maybe I didn’t express it very well back then, but I already knew I could never leave you again. Especially once it was just you and me, without Dad. Like you said the night Jessica died, we made a good team.” Sam snorts. “Understatement.”
Dean shakes his head. “You sure had a funny way of showing it.”
Sam’s quiet for a moment, and Dean glances at him, can see him thinking. Overthinking.
“You know I’m not him, right?” Sam says finally. “Your Sam, he must’ve kept a pretty tight rein on his emotions. Never let you in much.”
Dean thinks about that. “Well, we never kissed, if that’s what you mean,” he says. “That never would’ve occurred to us.”
Sam huffs out another breath, disbelieving. “Maybe if you had, things would’ve been different. Easier.”
Dean feels his hackles go up, defensive on behalf of his brother.
“How easier?” he demands. “You never dying easier? Me never going to Hell easier? You never taking up with Ruby easier? Lucifer not riding you into the Cage and you not coming back soulless easier? How?”
Sam says nothing, and Dean feels like a jerk for rubbing it in, but he can’t help it.
“Doesn’t seem to me like all the kissing and whatever else you and your brother got up to made a lick o’ difference, Sam,” he snaps. “At least, not where it counts.”
“It’s easier now,” Sam says quietly. “Recently. We talk more. Don’t hide things from each other like we used to. We’ve learned how to communicate better.”
“Well, bully for you,” Dean growls. He’s unreasonably angry, maybe even a little jealous.
But the truth is, things have been better with his Sam lately, too. Sam and Dean are more on the same page than they’ve ever been, after everything they’ve been through.
Maybe there’s not that much difference between the two sets of Sam and Dean.
Maybe sex doesn’t make much difference in their relationship, one way or the other.
PART THREE