Supernatural: Antioch, Illinois
Title: Antioch, Illinois
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Dean
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Rating: PG-13 for Language and Suggested Sexuality
Word Count: 8,838
Author’s Note: Written for the lovely elle_vole for my AIDS Walk Charity Fic Drive. She asked for: “Total future domestic fluff where Dean is turning 40, they've been "together" for a while.” I also managed to throw in hurt!Sam Hurt/Comfort and the boys fighting and then BAM!love from your other request, too. For the record, I’ve never been to Antioch, Illinois, so my representation of it is expected to be completely inaccurate. But if you’re familiar with Shakespeare’s Pericles, you’ll see why having Sam and Dean’s town be named Antioch was too good a joke to pass up. Thank you to whitereflection for the beta! ♥ ETA 5/7/2013: Thanks to eos_rose, you can now read this in epub format here.
Summary: Six years ago, Sam and Dean Winchester saved Antioch, Illinois from a Dragon. Hailed as heroes, they become the unofficial mayors of a town that is half Stepford, half a haven for hunters. After a few years in the spotlight, however, Dean just wants some time alone with his brother. They go on a hunt to celebrate his 40th birthday but things don’t really go as planned.
It was supposed to be a weekend off. A joke, even.
In between a low-rank demon in Wisconsin and a chupacabra some asshole let loose in Tennessee, Sam picked up a paper and found a pretty clear-cut salt and burn while they were having breakfast in a nowhere town in Illinois.
“Wouldn’t that be a trip?” he asked, laughing over his eggs.
Dean couldn’t remember the last time they took a case that easy. They’d been tackling some tough sons of bitches for the last two years, hadn’t taken a single break after Sam got back from Hell.
And Dean was tired. Watching his little brother joking at the idea of a regular ghost hunt made him ache for the days when they had mornings like that: picking a case over breakfast, not worrying it would go wrong, taking the time to breathe and just hangout.
He had to sacrifice three pieces of toast to convince Sam to go on the ghost hunt with him-just for old time’s sake-but eventually, Sam agreed.
They headed to Antioch, where the murders took place, immediately after breakfast. Dean’s plan was to spend maybe four hours on the case and the rest of the weekend enjoying his little brother’s company.
It’s been a six year case, so far.
_______________________________________________________________
“Dean, for the thousandth time, if you value your life at all, get those feet off my table.”
Dean tilts back in his chair and is greeted by Sam scowling at him. It’s even less intimidating upside-down. Dean laughs and gives his brother the best shit-eating grin he’s got.
“Heya, Sammy,” he says, wiggling his toes.
Sam smacks his briefcase over Dean’s feet. Dean loses his balance and tumbles onto the floor.
“Oops,” Sam says unapologetically.
“Little fucker,” Dean replies, still spread out on the ground, rubbing at his side.
“Did you break a hip, old man?” Sam asks, offering Dean a hand up.
“Blow me,” says Dean, pointedly refusing his brother’s assistance.
Sam smiles. “Maybe. If you’re nice and keep your feet off the table tonight.”
“How was work?” Dean asks, perching on the back of the couch and facing the other man.
“Work was work,” Sam answers. “How about you?”
“Same old. You hungry?”
“Mmm,” Sam replies, stepping into Dean’s space and rubbing his nose against Dean’s neck. “Did you make me dinner like a good little housewife?”
“I’m not your housewife, asshole.”
“Uh huh.”
“But I did make you dinner.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Sam licks at Dean’s skin. “What’d you make?”
“None of your damn business,” Dean answers, reluctantly pulling away from his brother’s mouth, and heading to the kitchen to grab two plates of chicken and rice.
He sets one down in front of Sam and takes the seat to his left.
“No guests tonight?”
“Not a one,” Sam says contentedly. “Just you and me. All night.”
“Finally,” says Dean.
“Finally,” Sam agrees, bending over his plate to give Dean a quick kiss.
Dean digs in, but after a few bites he realizes Sam isn’t touching his meal.
“What’s wrong with it?” he asks.
Sam shakes his head and looks up at Dean a little dazed. “Huh?”
“You’re not touching your food. What’s wrong with it?”
“No, nothing. Just thinking.”
“Just thinking about?”
“Your birthday,” Sam answers.
“I told you, man, I don’t wanna.”
“Stop acting like an old woman, Dean.”
“It’s not even about getting old. I just don’t want a big deal, you know. Once you invite one or two people over…”
“The whole town is throwing a parade in your honor.” Sam reaches out and squeezes Dean’s wrist sympathetically.
Dean nods and shrugs. “I don’t like it.”
“I know, Dean,” Sam says. He’s much better at fielding the attention they get, and usually is able to keep the spotlight off Dean. “But don’t you at least want something?”
“Extra onions,” Dean answers. He’s rewarded with one of the pieces of bread he’d so lovingly toasted being chucked at his face.
“Seriously, though.”
Dean swallows hard and opens his mouth, about to tell Sam exactly what he really wants. But of course, he never gets the chance. There’s a knock at the door, and their night alone suddenly turns into a night with the neighbors.
_______________________________________________________________
“Shit, Dean. I think you drove us right into Stepford.”
Dean looked out the window, watched what he could’ve sworn was the same house in different colors repeated a hundred times over. “It is a little vanilla,” he admitted.
A stop light turned red and the car came to a halt in front of a sign that read, “Welcome to Antioch, Illinois” in big, blue letters. Under that was a smaller tagline, “Close to perfect, close to home.” Dean pointed to it and laughed. Sam joined in as soon as he got a chance to read it.
“I feel like even the ghosts in a place like this have to be well-behaved.”
“Let’s hope so,” Sam answered with a shrug.
For the first few hours, things went exactly according to plan. They found out who the spirit was within two hours and split up. Sam went to torch the body and Dean headed to the ghost’s house to make sure it didn’t try any mischief on any living inhabitants in its last hours.
That’s when things got a little complicated.
_______________________________________________________________
Dean’s still shaking as he pulls away from his brother, breathing hard. Sam runs a finger down his back, presumably tracing a stray drop of sweat, and it makes Dean shiver all over again.
“That was nice,” he murmurs, words half muffled by his pillow.
Sam laughs and presses a kiss to his shoulder blade from behind. “I’m sorry about earlier, Dean.”
“You didn’t plan it,” he says, catching Sam’s hand and pulling it around his middle. “Anyway, the night wasn’t a total loss.”
“I know, but it was supposed to be our night.”
“Sam, it happens.”
“All the time.”
“Can we drop it and sleep? Please?”
“You were gonna tell me. I could tell.”
“Tell you what?” Dean gives up on sleeping for the moment since Sam is obviously not letting him go to bed until everyone has expressed their feelings. He rolls over and looks at his brother.
“What you want for your birthday.”
“For you to shut up and let me get a few hours before I have to go to work?”
“You should call in sick. I’ll call in sick.”
“Yeah, and then the mayor and everyone else in town will freak out and come over to make sure we aren’t slowly dying or trying to flee.”
Sam frowns. “You hate this.”
“Sam, you know I don’t.”
“You sound like it lately. We don’t have to stay.”
“Of course we do.”
“Why?”
“It’s home.” Dean grabs Sam’s face and kisses him gently. “Not just yours, okay? I don’t hate it here, I’m just, I dunno. Burnt out on it.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Do you, though?”
“Dean, do you really think I don’t miss having free time as much as you do?”
“You’re just so good at it,” he says, pressing a small kiss to the edge of Sam’s lips.
“You’re not so bad at playing house, whatever you may pretend.” Sam smiles against Dean’s kiss. “It’s past midnight, you know. You’re 40.”
“Ugh,” is the response from Dean, who turns back over, attempting to give his brother the cold shoulder. It’s hard to do with Sam’s big, warm hand resting on it, pushing him down to the mattress.
“I know you want something,” says Sam. “So tell me what it is and maybe I’ll let you sleep.”
“I wanna go on vacation,” Dean says. “Just you and me.”
Sam cracks up. “I thought that this was a vacation.”
“What it was supposed to be.”
“How do you go on vacation from being on vacation?”
Dean smirks. “We find a hunt. A big fucking hunt.”
“That’s really what you want, grandpa?” Dean nods and Sam smiles against his neck as he pulls him into his arms. “Then I’m gonna find you a hunt.”
_______________________________________________________________
The ghost was not the problem. The problem was the ghost’s wife.
As soon as Dean was through the door, he was staring down the barrel of a shotgun. He tried to bullshit a reason to be busting into a nice old lady’s home at 10 p.m. but she wasn’t really open to listening. Mostly because she knew why he was really there.
“If you don’t call that boy and tell him to leave my husband alone, I’ll shoot you right now,” she said, cradling the gun proudly. “Tim taught me how to shoot just before he died.”
Dean raised his own gun at her. “Lady, how much do you wanna bet I’m the faster shot?”
Her eyes went wide, but she didn’t tremble or lower her weapon. Which sucked, considering the fact that Dean had no intention of shooting an 85 year-old lady, crazy or not.
“Look, it’s not your husband you’re protecting. It’s just-”
“It’s him all right,” she insisted. “He plays our song on the radio.”
“He also kills all of your guests.”
“He was always a little jealous,” she said, sounding only the tiniest bit sorry.
“Look, I’m sorry, it’s happening.”
She shook her head, long white tresses swaying with her. “I’ll make you regret it if my husband is killed.”
Dean was about to ask how the hell she intended to do that when they heard the sound of a ghost dying from the next room over. The old lady made a furious face for only a moment before pulling out a knife and stabbing herself. Dean was caught completely off guard, ran to her to see if it was too late, which of course it was.
Dean was decked in her blood and his fingerprints were on the blade when the cops all poured in. Apparently she’d known he was coming; apparently she’d called them before he even showed up. And, well, things did not look good for Dean.
_______________________________________________________________
It ends up being a very belated birthday present, and Dean starts to think it won’t pan out, regardless of Sam’s repeated assurances it will. He spends the next two weeks trying to find them a job he deems good enough to be Dean’s birthday present. Dean digs through his research, finds at least a dozen discarded jobs that seem like they could have been perfectly awesome, but none of them are good enough according to his anal-retentive little brother.
Until one is.
“I’ve got it,” Sam says, first thing when Dean gets home. He can smell dinner, and it smells delicious, which means Sam definitely did not cook.
“Is that Boston Market?”
“Shut up and focus.”
“I’m plenty focused. I’m focused on the food.”
Sam drops a case file in front of Dean where Dean would kind of rather have a plate. “Read,” he says, all bitchy command, and Dean does his best not to laugh.
“Well?” Sam asks after Dean’s had a few moments to look it over.
“An abominable snowman?” Dean asks, eyebrows lifting.
“Yeah, what do you think?”
Dean tugs Sam down for a kiss and shows him exactly what he thinks.
_______________________________________________________________
“Let me tell you, Dean, this just does not look good.”
Dean tilted his head at his brother. “How did you get in here? And what the hell are you wearing?”
“I’m your lawyer, sir,” Sam said, putting way too much strain on every word. “James Ford, public defender.”
“Aha,” Dean replied, reaching out to flick the tweed blazer his brother was wearing. “But where’d you get the cheap suit?”
Sam sighed and slid into the seat next to Dean, keeping his tone down. “This fucking sucks, Dean.”
“Just let me bust out, then.”
“No, we need to get you proven innocent. Henricksen got our fingerprints wiped from the system, I am not about to have us on the FBI’s Most Wanted again.”
“How long is this going to take? I’m a very busy man.”
“At the rate you’re going? A week for you to get the electric chair.”
“Hey, come on now. I only killed one little old lady. No one gets the death sentence for that.”
“You know that counts as a confession if someone’s listening, right?”
“Sam, I’m not a child, I know when I’m being watched.”
Sam shrugged, then reached out to gently touch the bruise on Dean’s left cheek. “What’d you do?”
“Got in a little fight.”
“Dean. Dammit, if that makes it back to the court it’s just going to make you look worse. And you look pretty bad already. Do I really need to explain how much people don’t like little old lady killers?”
“It won’t make it back. Sparky doesn’t want anyone to know he got his ass kicked by a guy like me. We made a deal. He stops trying to make me his bitch, I won’t tell everyone whose bitch he is. Plus, I get his chicken for a month.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Great. Thanks for making my job easier.”
“No problem.”
“So, they basically have you convicted already. Which is good news because it means they’re not putting the trial off at all. We should be out of here in a few weeks.”
“This was supposed to take a few hours.”
“Yeah, maybe next time don’t get arrested.”
_______________________________________________________________
They’re staying in a cottage. A cottage in the middle of the mountains in Aspen, with a fully functional fireplace and bear skin rugs-the works. It’s kind of romantic, which Dean is pretty sure was a factor in Sam’s picking the hunt, but Dean’s not about to say anything about it.
Sam’s pretty much done all the research before they arrive, so they’re expecting a fairly easy go of it. Never mind that they’ve never hunted or even seen a yeti before and have no idea how to kill it.
Unsurprisingly, they come home from day one pretty badly beat up and may not have escaped at all if Sam hadn’t pulled those flare guns. Which distracted that giant fuzzy snowball but definitely didn’t kill it.
“I hurt,” Sam grumbles, dropping his backpack by the door when they get in.
Dean is too cold to properly respond, but he nods in sympathy. Sam heads for the fire and Dean feels the kind of relief he hasn’t had to worry about in years -because he hasn’t been in any kind of real danger-as soon as the flames begin to lick at the stone chimney.
“Mmm,” Dean says, pulling a chair as close as he can get without being a fire hazard. “That’s nice.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees.
They sit in silence, watching the blaze for a while.
“So…we’re out of practice.”
Sam half chuckles, but his lips turn down. “Dean, I’m sorry.”
“Huh?”
“We got our asses kicked. We were supposed to be having fun and now we’re just sore and-”
“Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll show you sore,” he says lewdly, winking at his brother.
Sam laughs lightly. “I’m serious.”
“Dude, we got our asses kicked by an abominable snowman. It was awesome.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Okay,” Sam says, unsure. “If you think so.”
“You’re not having fun hunting with your big brother?”
Sam smiles but doesn’t say anything.
_______________________________________________________________
It was worth sticking around for, even if Dean would never, ever admit it to Sam.
Sam waltzed into the courtroom, guns blazing, and turned what looked like a pretty fucked case into an untouchable one. The prosecution didn’t know what hit it. Dean spent the entire trial focusing on his brother, all of his little mannerisms, the fancy words he used, the cocksure grin on his face, and didn’t actually hear much of what was being said.
Sam was mesmerizing and Dean was feeling pretty guilty. In another world, this was supposed to be Sam’s life; Dean stole it from him. It was so easy to forget about that, even laugh it off, before it was staring him in the face. Sam wasn’t just a great hunter, not like Dean. Sam could have this. Dean wanted Sam to have it.
Sam was approached by a few lawyers as they were leaving. Dean watched them descend on him like vultures, pushing business cards, practically begging him to come in for an interview. Sam smiled his big, dimpled grin, and hesitated for a few seconds after they all walked away before sighing slightly and tossing them in the first bin they passed.
Dean fished them out.
They went directly to their motel after that, drank a little to celebrate. Sam made a few comments about leaving town the next day as Dean was crawling onto him, hot and hungry to get his hands on the easy-going, happy man he’d watched from the defendant’s chair.
“A little excited there?” Sam asked through a laugh as Dean thrust down on him, fighting to get his shirts off.
“You wear too many layers,” Dean responded hotly, mouth moving close to Sam’s ear.
“Like to give you something to work for,” his brother responded, hands hot on Dean’s skin.
Dean pulled back and sat up. “Sam, what do you want?”
“This is going in the right direction.”
Sam reached out for Dean, but Dean slapped his hand away.
“No, I mean…aren’t you, I dunno. Tired of hunting?”
Sam’s eyes went dark and he sat up, pushing Dean off to the side. “What are you getting at, Dean?”
“You just seemed to fit so well here.” Dean shrugged. “I mean, you got all those job offers. Don’t you ever want-?”
“Don’t you do that, Dean.” It wasn’t the face Sam made when he was annoyed, the one that was always a little amusing to Dean. This was the look that used to make demons tremble, and it sent a chill through Dean’s veins. “I don’t need to be thanked. I can’t even believe after everything we’ve been through that you want to start that martyr bullshit that fucked us up to begin with all over.”
“It’s not that,” Dean said.
“Oh? What is it, then?”
“I’m getting older, Sam. You’re getting older. We can’t hunt forever, you know that. I just thought, since we’re gonna have to settle down at some point anyway, well, why the hell not here? You can get a job and we can get a house and no one will know we’re brothers, we could even-”
“In the middle of Illinois?”
“Whatever, Sam. They don’t need to love us, just not arrest us.” Sam smirked a little. Dean took that as a good sign and continued. “Look, if we hate it, I’ve got a full tank of gas and there’ll always be more hunts. But we should at least try it out.”
“You’re serious about this.”
“Yeah,” Dean says softly. “Yeah, I am.”
“How much did you drink?”
“Enough to think it’s a good idea to settle down and fuck my brother?”
Sam laughed at him, but, in the end, that’s exactly what they did.
_______________________________________________________________
“You know, for a cabin in the mountains, this place is way too hot.” Dean shoves the blankets away and Sam’s arm in the process.
“You’re gonna be freezing in twenty minutes, and then you’ll wake me up trying to get back under here.”
“Nuh uh,” Dean says stubbornly, already beginning to feel the goose bumps rising on his skin. It’s going to be a long night, he thinks, but no way is he about to squirm back under the covers and prove his brother right.
It’s forty minutes after Sam said twenty when Dean finally gives up and tries to ply his brother’s limbs away from the mattress without waking him up.
Sam’s eyes open, blinking slightly, but he smiles. “Do I know my big brother or what?” he asks, raising his arm and the blanket to offer Dean an in. Grudgingly, Dean accepts.
“Shut up,” he says.
Sam pulls him in until his back is flush against Sam’s chest and kisses his neck. “Missed having nights like this,” he says, sleepy and warm.
Dean smiles to himself, then scoffs for his brother’s benefit. “You’ve got this biggest vagina of any girl I’ve ever dated, Sammy.”
“Probably the biggest dick, too.”
Dean chuckles lightly into his brother’s arm. “Definitely the biggest ego.”
Sam just hums against Dean’s skin. “Hey, Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“You wanna stay a little longer?”
“Oh no, no no no. You are not about to trick me into that, I know exactly what you’re up to.”
“C’mon, Dean! I gave you a present.”
“One? It was my birthday. Two? I didn’t actually want you to.”
“Please,” Sam says, drawing the word out. He begins to rock Dean, probably in the hopes he’ll get so annoyed he’ll cave. Dean definitely gets annoyed, but no way is he gonna cave.
“I don’t do Valentine’s Day, Sam. I’ve told you this, what, a thousand times now?”
“But Dean,” says Sam in the whiny tone of voice he used to try to stay up past his bedtime with. “We’re in the mountains. It’s romantic!”
“Sam, we have jobs to get back to.”
“Oh, come on. As if anyone is going to fire us for taking an extra week.”
“That’s not the point.”
“The point is: you just don’t want to because I do.”
“That’s not true, man.”
“You used to love Valentine’s Day when it was about sleeping with desperate chicks.”
Dean rolls over, endeared to the jealous, sour tone of Sam’s voice. “Well, if you want me to take advantage of you, that’s a completely different matter.”
Sam lets Dean kiss him, but is still pouting a little when Dean pulls back.
“I don’t like you,” he says, turning his back to Dean.
“I’m surprisingly okay with that.”
_______________________________________________________________
Sam and Dean did not exactly get a warm reception during their first few weeks in Antioch. First of all, there was the fact that everyone was still convinced Dean killed an old lady. Then they started to connect that Sam and Dean had known each other before the trial, which made Dean look guiltier and Sam seem even greasier than average lawyers. And finally, Sam and Dean decided that while everyone hated them, they might as well just go ahead and stop trying to hide the whole gay thing.
So yeah, as far as blending into their new home went, they weren’t exactly doing a bang up job. But they didn’t really care much, either. Sam and Dean had rarely ever had anyone but each other; they didn’t really need anyone else. Having a town full of churchgoers convinced they’re going to Hell was the least of their worries, a walk in the park as far as Dean was concerned.
“So guess what,” Sam said as he kicked the door closed behind him, arms full of groceries.
“Hmm?” Dean asked, raising his eyes from the paper. He still scanned them for possible hunts sometimes and figured he would until they had a proper house, or steady jobs, or anything really solid to tie them down.
“I, uh. I have an offer, Dean.”
Dean looked up to meet his brother’s eyes. “What, are you serious?”
Sam grinned. “Yeah, I guess one firm in this town doesn’t care if I am a gay heathen who supports psycho killers.”
“That’s beautiful, Sam. Practically poetry.”
“You wouldn’t know poetry if it bit you in the ass.”
“We should celebrate.”
“Celebrate like how?”
“Dinner out. At a really classy restaurant.”
Sam raised an eyebrow and leaned back against the sink counter. “You see any classy restaurants around here?”
“I know there’s a Biggerson’s,” Dean said, smiling and grabbing his brother’s wrist. Sam laughed and let Dean lead him out.
_______________________________________________________________
They head out bright and early, determined to finish what they’d hardly started the day before. They know where the yeti is holing up and they know how to draw it out, but the problem is that they still have no idea how to gank it.
These things don’t have much lore-they blend in well and are usually too far up in mountains to threaten enough human lives to get attention from hunters. But this one is moving down its mountain, snatching up idiot skiers that stray from the path and idiot hunters who are probably getting too damn old for this shit.
“Why didn’t we think of calling Bobby before we came out where there’s no damn signal?” Dean asks, scowling at his useless phone.
“I believe we were determined to get the job done ourselves,” Sam answers, sounding way more amused than Dean wants him to right now.
“Well, now we’re fucked.”
“It looks that way.” Sam stops as they approach the opening to the cave and stare in. “Should we really go in there without knowing what to do?”
“I’ve got guns, you’ve got another flare gun, we’ve got silver. Something’s bound to work, right?”
Sam shakes his head ‘no’ and Dean smiles and nods as if he’d agreed. He hears a small huff behind him as Sam trails him into the cave.
Dean shoots the thing with four separate types of bullets: regular, silver, lead, and bronze. Sam stabs it right in the heart. It stays on its feet until it has Sam in one hand and is about to take a bite out of him, and Dean-more to distract the damn thing from his brother than because he thinks the attack will be in any way productive-picks up a piece of torn up bark and hits the thing over the head. It collapses immediately from the small impact.
“Um,” Sam says, squirming to free himself from the giant hulk on top of him. “I’m pretty sure he’s dead, Dean.”
“Of course he’s not dead, Sam. That was a love tap. Get away from it before he wakes back up.”
Sam manages to push it off of him and stands up, kicking the yeti until it rolls over. He bends and checks its pulse. “No. It’s definitely dead.”
“That’s ridiculous. You set it on fire yesterday and it hardly noticed.”
“Well, apparently, all it takes is a hit to the head.”
“No,” Dean continues to insist. “What? Come on, that sucks! We can’t kill it by accident.”
Sam laughs. “I think you just did. Way to spoil our fun for the next few-shit, what the hell?”
The giant snowman next to Sam suddenly melts into the snow, the bones and abandoned ski gear in the corner the only evidence left that it had ever lived here.
“Dude,” Dean says, shaking his head. “This blows.”
Sam smirks. “We’ll find a better way to spend our days off next time.”
_______________________________________________________________
“Is that a-?”
Dean stood dumbstruck in the middle of the road, staring up at what his brother was asking about. “Yeah. Yes it is.”
“But that’s not…dragons aren’t real.”
“That one might be.”
The dragon cried out, spitting fire onto the city’s fire station. Ironic, thought Dean.
“What is a dragon doing here?”
“Dude, I have no idea, but if that thing gets as far as our motel, I’m gonna be pissed.”
“I guess we should stop it,” Sam said, turning to Dean with a slightly exhilarated grin.
“Fuck yeah we should stop it,” Dean agreed. “How do we stop it?”
“Tender underbelly,” Sam answered. Dean raised an eyebrow and Sam shrugged it off. “What, haven’t you ever read The Hobbit?”
Dean rolled his eyes, took his gun out, and fired one shot into the air, quieting the chaos for a moment. “Alright, all you screaming people running around the dragon’s feet, please do everyone a favor and get the fuck out of our way.”
_______________________________________________________________
“I don’t want to leave already,” Sam says.
“Life is really hard, Sammy.” Dean grabs up his bag and pulls the strap over a shoulder. “Our work here is done. We are sorely missed back home.”
“It’s not too late to change your mind you know,” Sam says, trying to sound alluring. “Valentine’s Day is just a few hours away.”
“Hence why I am pretty happy to say that we are on our way ou-”
Dean stands in the doorway and stares out for as long as he can without freezing to death. Sam appears next to him and snickers as they look out the door.
“You were saying?”
Dean lets the door slam shut. “What are the chances of someone coming to move the snow out of our path back to the car before tomorrow?”
Sam wraps an arm around Dean’s middle, resting his chin on his brother’s shoulder. “Slim to none,” he says, sounding very happy as he presses his lips against the skin on Dean’s neck.
“I hate you, Sam.”
“That’s too bad for you,” he says. “Happy Valentine’s, Dean.”
_______________________________________________________________
Dragons are big. Exceptionally so. Also, dragons breathe flames when they are pissed. The dragon Sam and Dean were fighting was pretty pissed, if the amount of fire they had to dodge was any indication.
Dean fell to the ground, evading a sharp, spiked tail as it swung just over his head, and rolled back onto his feet, looking around quickly to double check that Sam was okay. Sam was better off than Dean was for the moment; he ran between the creature’s claws, taunting the damn thing when he was too fast for it. Dean took advantage of this distraction to fire off a few rounds into the unarmored spot just above the dragon’s stomach, hoping he could drop it that way.
It didn’t quite work. Dean had just enough time to watch yellow eyes the size of his head swivel to face him before he was being knocked onto his back by the tail he’d so masterfully dodged moments earlier.
At least it’s not going after Sammy, he thought as the dragon hissed-thankfully without fire-and advanced on him.
Dean looked down at the apparently useless guns in his hands and shot the dragon three more times just out of spite. It didn’t do much to improve the dragon’s mood, and its measured steps sped up.
“Do something,” he damn near squeaked as the monster’s sharp claws settled themselves, one on each side of his head.
It smiled at him; Dean could smell its breath, and his only relief for the moment was that going out facing a dragon was a pretty fucking awesome way to die.
Dean closed his eyes tight, expecting to feel the teeth sinking into him any moment. They didn’t. The hot air abated and Dean sighed, knowing that this meant his idiot brother had found some desperate way to get the thing’s attention and was almost definitely in trouble now.
He opened one eye.
“Fuckin’ a, Sam,” Dean muttered to himself when he caught a glimpse of exactly what his brother had done.
The dragon bucked wildly, trying to toss Sam off it. Sam held fast to it with one hand, jeans torn and bloodied where the spikes on its back were slicing into him. In his free hand, he held a long knife.
Dean rolled his eyes. Sam had clearly read one too many King Arthur legends and now Dean had to find a way to get his sword-waving knight-in-plaid-and-bad-hair off of a flame-throwing, incited, overgrown worm before Sam got himself stabbed somewhere it wouldn’t just be annoying.
He climbed higher on the beast and brought his arm down quickly, again eluding the swats of the dragon’s clawed arms. The knife pierced right into one eye, and then Sam pulled back and sank it into the other.
The dragon shrieked, loud enough to shatter the stained glass on the nearby church, which had somehow avoided serious damage until that point. He flopped onto his side, not dead, but too much in pain to stay a threat, at least for the moment.
Dean smiled until it connected that his brother had been on the damned thing’s back and was now nowhere to be seen.
“Fuckin’ a, Sammy,” he repeated, crawling towards the danger instead of in the direction he probably should have been going. He shouldn’t have been able to stand up yet, not with the force of the fall he had earlier, but he raised himself to limp anyway, more interested in finding his brother and making sure Sam was okay than in his own wounds.
“Sam?” he cried out. No response.
Shitshitshitshitshitshit, one half of his brain repeated. The other half replied, shut the fuck up, I’m trying to concentrate.
The dragon made an angry sound as he approached; Dean figured it could smell him. He looked around for the knife Sam must have dropped. No way was he getting his brother out of this alive if that thing got back up and started thrashing around blindly.
He spotted it, the silver blade reflecting sunlight in a way that would have been obnoxious if it weren’t helping him. It took less than ten seconds for Dean to dive and grab the knife, turning and planting it deep in the soft flesh the dragon exposed by falling onto its side.
Dean was only distantly aware of the cheering of a crowd in the background as it gave one last cry and died. All he could think was that he still hadn’t seen Sam.
“Sammy,” he cried out again, running to the opposite side of the dragon. There was a pile about fifteen feet away from where the dead dragon was lying and Dean ran to it, kneeling immediately when his eyes confirmed that the lump was his brother.
He took Sam’s head into his lap and shook him lightly.
“Sammy, come on. Wake up.”
Slowly, Sam obeyed, smiling slightly as he recognized Dean.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, completely out of breath. “Who would’ve thought killing one measly dragon would be such a pain in the ass?”
“Are you okay?”
Sam shook his head, turned toward his brother, and promptly passed back out.
_______________________________________________________________
He wakes to the smell of something delicious. The scent is so damn inviting that Dean actually gets out of bed without half a minute of hesitation or grumbling to investigate it.
Sam is standing at the stove, so Dean wraps an arm around him from behind and Sam turns to face him.
“I’m making breakfast,” he says excitedly.
Dean feels his stomach drop, but he forces a smile onto his face. “Awesome,” he says, trying to convince himself even Sam’s cooking couldn’t possibly taste bad when it smelled the way this did. Then again, Dean’s been up here in the mountains eating his brother’s crappy cooking for a week now, so the chances are Dean’s just starting to get Stockholm Syndrome.
“Sit down,” Sam demands, gesturing the way a mother would. Dean snorts, thinking that the only thing that could make his brother more ridiculous right now would be an apron.
“Chocolate chip pancakes,” Sam announces, setting a plate down in front of Dean. “Bacon. Coffee.”
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Where did you get all this shit in the middle of an avalanche?”
Sam looks down at the table, ears slightly pink. “I brought it. Just in case.”
“Just in case,” Dean says, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You planned this?”
“I didn’t plan the avalanche.”
“So you thought I was just going to cave because you said you wanted Valentine’s Day, huh?”
“There’s a precedent for you caving, Dean,” Sam replies, cocky smile on his lips. Dean alternately wants to punch and taste it.
“I’m surprised my pancakes aren’t heart shaped.”
Dean sees his favorite scowl across the table and digs in to his breakfast, feeling pretty accomplished considering he’s only been up for five minutes.
He freezes as soon as the food’s in his mouth and blinks across the table, a little bit in shock.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asks, sounding crestfallen. “You don’t like it?”
“No, nothing,” Dean says, poking his food suspiciously. “It’s…actually really good.”
Sam smiles, says, “I tried really hard this time.”
Dean doesn’t bother to respond, just keeps shoveling bites of pancake down.
“Now can I have Valentine’s Day?” Sam asks as he watches Dean finish and take his plate to the sink.
Dean sighs and walks out of the room.
_______________________________________________________________
“Hey,” Sam said, blinking at his brother through heavy eyelids.
Dean smoothed a hand over his forehead, pushing the sweaty hair out of his eyes and pretending not to check his temperature.
“Hey.”
“God, I feel like shit.”
“You look worse, I promise.”
“Thanks, Dean.”
Dean smiled weakly and leaned over the bed to kiss his brother. “You’re gonna be okay.”
“Shit, tell that to my fucking ribs.”
“Yeah, well, when you throw yourself on the mercy of a dragon…”
Sam started laughing very suddenly, immediately crying out in pain from the exertion but not quite able to stop himself.
“What’s funny?”
“Dude, did we seriously fight a dragon? I was sure that was a fever dream.”
Dean snorted. “It happened.”
“Dragons aren’t real.”
“I think I remember you saying that just before it tried to eat you, too.”
“Where the hell did a dragon even-?”
“Yeah, I have no fucking clue. Doesn’t seem like another one is around, though, so that’s good news.”
Sam stayed quiet for a few minutes, pensive. Then he smiled and laughed a little. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Dean took Sam's hand, gave it a light squeeze. “Man, next time you do something that crazy, I am going to kill you.”
“And the King of Empty Threats strikes again.”
Dean smiled and let go of Sam. “Anything you need? There’s a store right down the street.”
Sam blinked slowly and looked around, took in his surroundings for the first time since waking up. “Where the hell are we anyway?"
Dean fought to keep his smile in check. “Home.”
"Home?" Sam asked with a raised eyebrow.
Dean nodded. "Home."
"We don't have a home."
"We do. And, uh, this is it."
"Where did we get a home? When did we get a home? And, possibly most importantly, why does our home look like Martha Stewart lives in it?"
Dean shrugged. "I tried to ask for a crappier place but they kind of insisted. And since I'd already put up a fight to keep you with me instead of sending you to the hospital, they won by arguing that you should have a better bed."
"Who is they?"
"Uh." Dean shook his head, as puzzled by what he was about to say as he knew Sam would be hearing it. "The entire town."
"How long did I sleep?"
"Just long enough for everyone to double check with each other and realize that they really did just watch two guys slay a fucking dragon."
"A dragon," Sam muttered under his breath. "Still haven't gotten used to that one."
"Yeah, it's all pretty weird."
"So what happened? Last time I checked everyone in town hated us."
"It's gone crazy out there, Sam. They keep treating me like some kind of hero. Every time I walk outside, there's a fucking crowd. The mayor was over here twenty minutes ago to make sure you were doing okay and pretty much pushing his wife's chicken soup on me like it was going to miraculously fix all our bumps and bruises. Then he asked if I wanted his job."
"What?"
"No joke, Sam. He said they all talked it over and felt you and I should be in charge."
"They don't even know us!"
"I know. Could you imagine us with a town? Shit, we can't even take care of ourselves."
"So what'd you say?"
"Said I'd rather have a job picking up garbage."
"Mmm, I could get behind you wearing one of those little blue jumpsuits to work."
Dean glared. "I'm not gonna pick up the garbage, Sammy.”
Sam pouted slightly, reaching out for Dean. He slid into the bed as carefully as he could manage, hoping not to jostle Sam too much or upset any of his own bruises.
“Did get a job, though. Figured since you’re going to be recovering and I didn’t feel inclined to accept free money on top of the free house.”
“What’re you doing?” Sam asked, already sounding half asleep.
Dean rubbed his face into the crook of his brother’s neck. “Working for Tony the Mechanic,” he replied with a grin.
“Didn’t Tony the Mechanic tell you to go to Hell and take me with you when you applied last week?”
Dean huffed a laugh into Sam’s skin. “Yeah. He came begging me to work for him the other day. Offered to give me the garage and said he’d understand if I decided not to keep him on the payroll.”
“This is fucking weird, Dean.”
“Yeah.”
“You think it’ll settle down soon?”
“Sure, it’ll have to. We’ll just do our jobs and they’ll get used to us and everything will be calm.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, nodding into his pillow. He yawned as he added, “It’ll be nice.”
_______________________________________________________________
“I hate life without the internet,” Sam sighs, shutting his laptop too hard.
“We’re lucky we still have power,” Dean points out, eyes trained on the TV.
“It’s not an avalanche or something. We’re just snowed in. We should have reception.”
“See what happens when you will crappy weather on us just to get your way?”
“First of all, the snow is not my fault. Second, I’m not even getting my way, because you’re being an asshole.”
“I’m not being an asshole, Sam. I’ve told you I don’t do Valentine’s, I don’t get why it’s suddenly so important to you. You never made it an issue before.”
“Right. So is one year so much to ask for?”
“I just don’t see why it matters, Sammy.”
“Don’t Sammy me!”
“Wow, you really just said that.”
Sam turns from the doorway to glare at Dean.
“Are you seriously getting pissy about this?”
“Yeah, Dean. I seriously am.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not. I put a lot of work into making this something nice for you, you know. Not just because it was your birthday, because I genuinely wanted you to get a break. And because I wanted one, too. And because I thought, just maybe, you’d cut out your macho bullshit if it was just us and return the fucking favor.”
“Sam,” Dean begins, but Sam turns and enters the bedroom, closing the door behind him in a way that makes it clear Dean is not welcome to follow.
_______________________________________________________________
Things didn’t exactly go the way Dean had planned. As soon as Sam was well enough to take care of himself at home, Dean started heading down to the garage to work. By then, the crowds outside of their house had mostly disappeared, but people on the street still stared, and Dean had more customers bring in perfectly okay cars, trumping up something they think might be wrong with them just to talk to him, than real customers.
At first, the attention was kind of nice. He would give everyone his best smile and send them on their way, no harm done. But after a while, it started to make him pretty uncomfortable.
Sam figured out what was bothering Dean before he even started to deal with it himself, so he already had a plan by the time he went back to work.
Dean wasn’t around when Sam made the arrangement, but what it more-or-less came down to was Sam agreeing to help Mayor Madeleine run Antioch as long as he got no credit for it and the people agreed to leave Dean the hell out of it.
Dean was annoyed at first, thinking Sam was trying to take a bullet for him, but, after a month or so, he realized that, however much Sam rolled his eyes and made fun of it with Dean, he was happy. Dean could read the look in Sam’s eyes and the tiny turn of his lips. And since the whole point of settling down was to fit in somewhere, really fit in for once, Dean wasn’t going to begrudge his little brother anything that made him feel at home.
_______________________________________________________________
Fighting with Sam has never been a strength of Dean’s. He rarely wins when he’s in the right, and the longer he sits in front of the TV trying to ignore the waves of hostility flowing out of the bedroom, the more he realizes he’s wrong this time. Sam does a lot for him and knowing that his brother is possibly regretting that makes Dean feel a sense of wrongness that goes all the way to his bones.
He doesn’t come out all day, not once. Dean doesn’t knock or try to apologize; apologies aren’t really his thing. Dean figures if he’s going to say sorry, he’s going to have to find a better way than I’m sorry.
He turns the television off, heaving a put-upon sigh he knows Sam will never hear. Then he gets up and starts digging through the cabin, hoping to find some way to make things up to Sam.
_______________________________________________________________
Antioch was home to Sam for months before it was home to Dean. Sam went in to the law firm he was made partner at the first day he went in after the dragon incident (which had annoyed Sam until he came home from a case completely convinced he’d earned it) and did his job well, relished the chance to finally get that dream he’d been forced to leave behind when he left Stanford.
Instead of feeling intruded upon when the mayor knocked on the door or called every two hours, Sam dealt with it perfectly, was actually quite the little politician. But Dean just sat at home after work, a little resentful that he was being robbed of his brother’s company.
It all changed one day in August when a girl walked into the garage he worked at, headed straight for where Dean was working, and hovered near him until he was forced to acknowledge her.
“Sweetheart, I’m busy right now. If you need someone to look at your car, you’re going to need to talk to one of the other mechan-”
“I don’t drive,” she said, words rushed.
“Oh. Uh…then why are you at a garage?”
“I was there, you know. The day you guys killed the monster, I saw it.”
Dean scowled. “Yeah, so did the rest of the town. Look, I need to work, okay?”
She shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. I have a problem. I was wondering if you did things like that often.”
“Killing dragons? I was pretty sure they didn’t exist until then.”
“But you weren’t scared. You knew how to fight.”
Dean tilted his head at her and then nodded, not quite seeing where she was going.
“What else do you know how to fight?”
“All kinds of things.”
“Can you fight ghosts?” she asked, laughing. “I know that’s a stupid question, but if people can fight dragons, I thought maybe…”
“You got a ghost problem?”
“I think so,” she said slowly. “It hasn’t killed anyone, but it hurt my dog. Threatening messages are showing up all over the house. It’s scaring me.”
“Alright, yeah,” Dean said, wiping his hands off on his work pants. “Yeah, I can help you with that.”
She smiled. “When can you?”
Dean looked over his shoulder and shrugged. “Right now, let me just run and tell my boss, alright?”
Dean took care of the ghost without even bothering Sam about it and thought that would be the end of it. But the next week, a guy showed up, claiming that someone told him Dean was the man to see about weird problems. Before Dean knew it, he was working hunts from Antioch and the nearest three or four towns as often as he was fixing cars.
People began to respect him for this the same way they respected Sam for whatever boring ass policies he was responsible for. Together they made a pretty good team. Sam kept things together, Dean made sure they were safe.
_______________________________________________________________
Dean knocks at the bedroom door. “Are you about done crying in there?”
Sam opens it just enough to glare. “I’m not crying. I’m reading.”
“Sure, princess.”
“What do you want, Dean?”
“My Valentine?” he asks, smiling awkwardly.
Sam raises an eyebrow and lets the door swing open the rest of the way. “Is something cooking?”
“Kind of,” Dean replies. “Come see.”
Sam follows him out to the dining room and snickers. “You reheated the breakfast I made you, Dean? That’s really romantic, I’m blown away.”
“Trust me, you didn’t wanna eat any of the other shit in the pantry.” He smiles and motions for Sam to come closer. “Besides, I may have added my own touch.”
Sam leans over the table and his face goes soft for a moment before he swallows it and gives Dean a mocking look. “Heart-shaped pancakes, Dean? Really?”
“It’s Valentine’s Day, haven’t you heard?”
“You’re an idiot,” Sam says.
“You’re an idiot’s Valentine.”
Sam smiles, showing dimples. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
_______________________________________________________________
Two idiots broke their legs and one moron broke a rib attempting to use the skills they learned watching Dean fight supernatural creatures before Dean accepted that he was creating hunters whether he wanted to or not, so he might as well make them decent ones.
He started holding lessons every Wednesday night and people would show up from hours away to learn. He was good at teaching, had done it before with Sam, and, after a year or so, he produced nine or ten decent hunters in Antioch alone. To his relief, none of them wanted to be real hunters, not many of the people coming in from other towns did, either. They just wanted to be able to take care of themselves and their own, so Dean made sure they knew the basics. The town got a reputation among hunters for being the safest place in the country, and often other hunters would stop by just to see if the rumors were true.
Sam and Dean had been living under their real names since after the dragon incident, but the people of the town didn’t take it seriously when one of them accidentally slipped up and said ‘brother.’ They took it as a euphemism for ‘boyfriends who are possibly married because they have the same last name and isn’t that weird, we didn’t even know that was possible in this state.’ Sam and Dean never bothered to correct them.
Nobody troubled them about being gay, not after they’d saved everyone in town’s life, at least. Even the fire-and-brimstone crowd who’d given Sam and Dean the nastiest glares when they’d first moved into Antioch would have been happy to throw a gay pride parade if Sam or Dean had asked it.
The really great thing about this was that when hunters rolled into town who had known them as brothers and asked for them as brothers, the townspeople would just laugh, assuming the hunter had to be a friend because they were in on the joke. The hunters would leave trying to puzzle out what they’d said that was so funny, but they never connected just how close Sam and Dean were, and the people of Antioch never connected that they really were brothers.
It was kind of perfect as far as Dean was concerned and as the years passed, he only loved it more. It really was home, even if it wasn’t perfect and they didn’t get to be together 100% of the time. It was more happiness than Dean had ever thought they’d get.
_______________________________________________________________
“Thanks, Dean,” Sam says as they’re drifting off to sleep.
Dean tightens his grip on his brother, but plays it off. “I mean, it wasn’t all bad for me, either.”
Sam sighs. “Not for the sex, jerk. For letting me have my Valentine’s Day.”
Dean presses his lips to his brother’s shoulder and whispers against his back, “I meant that, too.”
“Really?” Sam asks.
“Well, that and the sex was pretty nice.”
Sam slaps an arm behind him lazily, hitting Dean’s side.
“This whole thing was fun, Sam. Thanks for planning it.”
“Yeah, no problem. It was nice to get away.”
“Yeah,” Dean says slowly. “You wanna hear the weirdest thing, though?”
“Hmm?”
“I kind of miss being home.”
Dean can hear the smile in Sam’s voice when he answers. “Me, too.”
“The snow was lighter today. And someone will be by in the morning to clear the path for us.”
“Yeah,” Sam sounds half asleep, so Dean figures he can get away with being a little maudlin.
“I’m glad I got to be alone with you, though,” he says gently. “It was the best birthday present ever.”
Sam makes a content sound. “Shut up and let me sleep, Dean.”
“Aww, Sammy. I love you, too.”
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Dean
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Rating: PG-13 for Language and Suggested Sexuality
Word Count: 8,838
Author’s Note: Written for the lovely elle_vole for my AIDS Walk Charity Fic Drive. She asked for: “Total future domestic fluff where Dean is turning 40, they've been "together" for a while.” I also managed to throw in hurt!Sam Hurt/Comfort and the boys fighting and then BAM!love from your other request, too. For the record, I’ve never been to Antioch, Illinois, so my representation of it is expected to be completely inaccurate. But if you’re familiar with Shakespeare’s Pericles, you’ll see why having Sam and Dean’s town be named Antioch was too good a joke to pass up. Thank you to whitereflection for the beta! ♥ ETA 5/7/2013: Thanks to eos_rose, you can now read this in epub format here.
Summary: Six years ago, Sam and Dean Winchester saved Antioch, Illinois from a Dragon. Hailed as heroes, they become the unofficial mayors of a town that is half Stepford, half a haven for hunters. After a few years in the spotlight, however, Dean just wants some time alone with his brother. They go on a hunt to celebrate his 40th birthday but things don’t really go as planned.
It was supposed to be a weekend off. A joke, even.
In between a low-rank demon in Wisconsin and a chupacabra some asshole let loose in Tennessee, Sam picked up a paper and found a pretty clear-cut salt and burn while they were having breakfast in a nowhere town in Illinois.
“Wouldn’t that be a trip?” he asked, laughing over his eggs.
Dean couldn’t remember the last time they took a case that easy. They’d been tackling some tough sons of bitches for the last two years, hadn’t taken a single break after Sam got back from Hell.
And Dean was tired. Watching his little brother joking at the idea of a regular ghost hunt made him ache for the days when they had mornings like that: picking a case over breakfast, not worrying it would go wrong, taking the time to breathe and just hangout.
He had to sacrifice three pieces of toast to convince Sam to go on the ghost hunt with him-just for old time’s sake-but eventually, Sam agreed.
They headed to Antioch, where the murders took place, immediately after breakfast. Dean’s plan was to spend maybe four hours on the case and the rest of the weekend enjoying his little brother’s company.
It’s been a six year case, so far.
_______________________________________________________________
“Dean, for the thousandth time, if you value your life at all, get those feet off my table.”
Dean tilts back in his chair and is greeted by Sam scowling at him. It’s even less intimidating upside-down. Dean laughs and gives his brother the best shit-eating grin he’s got.
“Heya, Sammy,” he says, wiggling his toes.
Sam smacks his briefcase over Dean’s feet. Dean loses his balance and tumbles onto the floor.
“Oops,” Sam says unapologetically.
“Little fucker,” Dean replies, still spread out on the ground, rubbing at his side.
“Did you break a hip, old man?” Sam asks, offering Dean a hand up.
“Blow me,” says Dean, pointedly refusing his brother’s assistance.
Sam smiles. “Maybe. If you’re nice and keep your feet off the table tonight.”
“How was work?” Dean asks, perching on the back of the couch and facing the other man.
“Work was work,” Sam answers. “How about you?”
“Same old. You hungry?”
“Mmm,” Sam replies, stepping into Dean’s space and rubbing his nose against Dean’s neck. “Did you make me dinner like a good little housewife?”
“I’m not your housewife, asshole.”
“Uh huh.”
“But I did make you dinner.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Sam licks at Dean’s skin. “What’d you make?”
“None of your damn business,” Dean answers, reluctantly pulling away from his brother’s mouth, and heading to the kitchen to grab two plates of chicken and rice.
He sets one down in front of Sam and takes the seat to his left.
“No guests tonight?”
“Not a one,” Sam says contentedly. “Just you and me. All night.”
“Finally,” says Dean.
“Finally,” Sam agrees, bending over his plate to give Dean a quick kiss.
Dean digs in, but after a few bites he realizes Sam isn’t touching his meal.
“What’s wrong with it?” he asks.
Sam shakes his head and looks up at Dean a little dazed. “Huh?”
“You’re not touching your food. What’s wrong with it?”
“No, nothing. Just thinking.”
“Just thinking about?”
“Your birthday,” Sam answers.
“I told you, man, I don’t wanna.”
“Stop acting like an old woman, Dean.”
“It’s not even about getting old. I just don’t want a big deal, you know. Once you invite one or two people over…”
“The whole town is throwing a parade in your honor.” Sam reaches out and squeezes Dean’s wrist sympathetically.
Dean nods and shrugs. “I don’t like it.”
“I know, Dean,” Sam says. He’s much better at fielding the attention they get, and usually is able to keep the spotlight off Dean. “But don’t you at least want something?”
“Extra onions,” Dean answers. He’s rewarded with one of the pieces of bread he’d so lovingly toasted being chucked at his face.
“Seriously, though.”
Dean swallows hard and opens his mouth, about to tell Sam exactly what he really wants. But of course, he never gets the chance. There’s a knock at the door, and their night alone suddenly turns into a night with the neighbors.
_______________________________________________________________
“Shit, Dean. I think you drove us right into Stepford.”
Dean looked out the window, watched what he could’ve sworn was the same house in different colors repeated a hundred times over. “It is a little vanilla,” he admitted.
A stop light turned red and the car came to a halt in front of a sign that read, “Welcome to Antioch, Illinois” in big, blue letters. Under that was a smaller tagline, “Close to perfect, close to home.” Dean pointed to it and laughed. Sam joined in as soon as he got a chance to read it.
“I feel like even the ghosts in a place like this have to be well-behaved.”
“Let’s hope so,” Sam answered with a shrug.
For the first few hours, things went exactly according to plan. They found out who the spirit was within two hours and split up. Sam went to torch the body and Dean headed to the ghost’s house to make sure it didn’t try any mischief on any living inhabitants in its last hours.
That’s when things got a little complicated.
_______________________________________________________________
Dean’s still shaking as he pulls away from his brother, breathing hard. Sam runs a finger down his back, presumably tracing a stray drop of sweat, and it makes Dean shiver all over again.
“That was nice,” he murmurs, words half muffled by his pillow.
Sam laughs and presses a kiss to his shoulder blade from behind. “I’m sorry about earlier, Dean.”
“You didn’t plan it,” he says, catching Sam’s hand and pulling it around his middle. “Anyway, the night wasn’t a total loss.”
“I know, but it was supposed to be our night.”
“Sam, it happens.”
“All the time.”
“Can we drop it and sleep? Please?”
“You were gonna tell me. I could tell.”
“Tell you what?” Dean gives up on sleeping for the moment since Sam is obviously not letting him go to bed until everyone has expressed their feelings. He rolls over and looks at his brother.
“What you want for your birthday.”
“For you to shut up and let me get a few hours before I have to go to work?”
“You should call in sick. I’ll call in sick.”
“Yeah, and then the mayor and everyone else in town will freak out and come over to make sure we aren’t slowly dying or trying to flee.”
Sam frowns. “You hate this.”
“Sam, you know I don’t.”
“You sound like it lately. We don’t have to stay.”
“Of course we do.”
“Why?”
“It’s home.” Dean grabs Sam’s face and kisses him gently. “Not just yours, okay? I don’t hate it here, I’m just, I dunno. Burnt out on it.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Do you, though?”
“Dean, do you really think I don’t miss having free time as much as you do?”
“You’re just so good at it,” he says, pressing a small kiss to the edge of Sam’s lips.
“You’re not so bad at playing house, whatever you may pretend.” Sam smiles against Dean’s kiss. “It’s past midnight, you know. You’re 40.”
“Ugh,” is the response from Dean, who turns back over, attempting to give his brother the cold shoulder. It’s hard to do with Sam’s big, warm hand resting on it, pushing him down to the mattress.
“I know you want something,” says Sam. “So tell me what it is and maybe I’ll let you sleep.”
“I wanna go on vacation,” Dean says. “Just you and me.”
Sam cracks up. “I thought that this was a vacation.”
“What it was supposed to be.”
“How do you go on vacation from being on vacation?”
Dean smirks. “We find a hunt. A big fucking hunt.”
“That’s really what you want, grandpa?” Dean nods and Sam smiles against his neck as he pulls him into his arms. “Then I’m gonna find you a hunt.”
_______________________________________________________________
The ghost was not the problem. The problem was the ghost’s wife.
As soon as Dean was through the door, he was staring down the barrel of a shotgun. He tried to bullshit a reason to be busting into a nice old lady’s home at 10 p.m. but she wasn’t really open to listening. Mostly because she knew why he was really there.
“If you don’t call that boy and tell him to leave my husband alone, I’ll shoot you right now,” she said, cradling the gun proudly. “Tim taught me how to shoot just before he died.”
Dean raised his own gun at her. “Lady, how much do you wanna bet I’m the faster shot?”
Her eyes went wide, but she didn’t tremble or lower her weapon. Which sucked, considering the fact that Dean had no intention of shooting an 85 year-old lady, crazy or not.
“Look, it’s not your husband you’re protecting. It’s just-”
“It’s him all right,” she insisted. “He plays our song on the radio.”
“He also kills all of your guests.”
“He was always a little jealous,” she said, sounding only the tiniest bit sorry.
“Look, I’m sorry, it’s happening.”
She shook her head, long white tresses swaying with her. “I’ll make you regret it if my husband is killed.”
Dean was about to ask how the hell she intended to do that when they heard the sound of a ghost dying from the next room over. The old lady made a furious face for only a moment before pulling out a knife and stabbing herself. Dean was caught completely off guard, ran to her to see if it was too late, which of course it was.
Dean was decked in her blood and his fingerprints were on the blade when the cops all poured in. Apparently she’d known he was coming; apparently she’d called them before he even showed up. And, well, things did not look good for Dean.
_______________________________________________________________
It ends up being a very belated birthday present, and Dean starts to think it won’t pan out, regardless of Sam’s repeated assurances it will. He spends the next two weeks trying to find them a job he deems good enough to be Dean’s birthday present. Dean digs through his research, finds at least a dozen discarded jobs that seem like they could have been perfectly awesome, but none of them are good enough according to his anal-retentive little brother.
Until one is.
“I’ve got it,” Sam says, first thing when Dean gets home. He can smell dinner, and it smells delicious, which means Sam definitely did not cook.
“Is that Boston Market?”
“Shut up and focus.”
“I’m plenty focused. I’m focused on the food.”
Sam drops a case file in front of Dean where Dean would kind of rather have a plate. “Read,” he says, all bitchy command, and Dean does his best not to laugh.
“Well?” Sam asks after Dean’s had a few moments to look it over.
“An abominable snowman?” Dean asks, eyebrows lifting.
“Yeah, what do you think?”
Dean tugs Sam down for a kiss and shows him exactly what he thinks.
_______________________________________________________________
“Let me tell you, Dean, this just does not look good.”
Dean tilted his head at his brother. “How did you get in here? And what the hell are you wearing?”
“I’m your lawyer, sir,” Sam said, putting way too much strain on every word. “James Ford, public defender.”
“Aha,” Dean replied, reaching out to flick the tweed blazer his brother was wearing. “But where’d you get the cheap suit?”
Sam sighed and slid into the seat next to Dean, keeping his tone down. “This fucking sucks, Dean.”
“Just let me bust out, then.”
“No, we need to get you proven innocent. Henricksen got our fingerprints wiped from the system, I am not about to have us on the FBI’s Most Wanted again.”
“How long is this going to take? I’m a very busy man.”
“At the rate you’re going? A week for you to get the electric chair.”
“Hey, come on now. I only killed one little old lady. No one gets the death sentence for that.”
“You know that counts as a confession if someone’s listening, right?”
“Sam, I’m not a child, I know when I’m being watched.”
Sam shrugged, then reached out to gently touch the bruise on Dean’s left cheek. “What’d you do?”
“Got in a little fight.”
“Dean. Dammit, if that makes it back to the court it’s just going to make you look worse. And you look pretty bad already. Do I really need to explain how much people don’t like little old lady killers?”
“It won’t make it back. Sparky doesn’t want anyone to know he got his ass kicked by a guy like me. We made a deal. He stops trying to make me his bitch, I won’t tell everyone whose bitch he is. Plus, I get his chicken for a month.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Great. Thanks for making my job easier.”
“No problem.”
“So, they basically have you convicted already. Which is good news because it means they’re not putting the trial off at all. We should be out of here in a few weeks.”
“This was supposed to take a few hours.”
“Yeah, maybe next time don’t get arrested.”
_______________________________________________________________
They’re staying in a cottage. A cottage in the middle of the mountains in Aspen, with a fully functional fireplace and bear skin rugs-the works. It’s kind of romantic, which Dean is pretty sure was a factor in Sam’s picking the hunt, but Dean’s not about to say anything about it.
Sam’s pretty much done all the research before they arrive, so they’re expecting a fairly easy go of it. Never mind that they’ve never hunted or even seen a yeti before and have no idea how to kill it.
Unsurprisingly, they come home from day one pretty badly beat up and may not have escaped at all if Sam hadn’t pulled those flare guns. Which distracted that giant fuzzy snowball but definitely didn’t kill it.
“I hurt,” Sam grumbles, dropping his backpack by the door when they get in.
Dean is too cold to properly respond, but he nods in sympathy. Sam heads for the fire and Dean feels the kind of relief he hasn’t had to worry about in years -because he hasn’t been in any kind of real danger-as soon as the flames begin to lick at the stone chimney.
“Mmm,” Dean says, pulling a chair as close as he can get without being a fire hazard. “That’s nice.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees.
They sit in silence, watching the blaze for a while.
“So…we’re out of practice.”
Sam half chuckles, but his lips turn down. “Dean, I’m sorry.”
“Huh?”
“We got our asses kicked. We were supposed to be having fun and now we’re just sore and-”
“Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll show you sore,” he says lewdly, winking at his brother.
Sam laughs lightly. “I’m serious.”
“Dude, we got our asses kicked by an abominable snowman. It was awesome.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Okay,” Sam says, unsure. “If you think so.”
“You’re not having fun hunting with your big brother?”
Sam smiles but doesn’t say anything.
_______________________________________________________________
It was worth sticking around for, even if Dean would never, ever admit it to Sam.
Sam waltzed into the courtroom, guns blazing, and turned what looked like a pretty fucked case into an untouchable one. The prosecution didn’t know what hit it. Dean spent the entire trial focusing on his brother, all of his little mannerisms, the fancy words he used, the cocksure grin on his face, and didn’t actually hear much of what was being said.
Sam was mesmerizing and Dean was feeling pretty guilty. In another world, this was supposed to be Sam’s life; Dean stole it from him. It was so easy to forget about that, even laugh it off, before it was staring him in the face. Sam wasn’t just a great hunter, not like Dean. Sam could have this. Dean wanted Sam to have it.
Sam was approached by a few lawyers as they were leaving. Dean watched them descend on him like vultures, pushing business cards, practically begging him to come in for an interview. Sam smiled his big, dimpled grin, and hesitated for a few seconds after they all walked away before sighing slightly and tossing them in the first bin they passed.
Dean fished them out.
They went directly to their motel after that, drank a little to celebrate. Sam made a few comments about leaving town the next day as Dean was crawling onto him, hot and hungry to get his hands on the easy-going, happy man he’d watched from the defendant’s chair.
“A little excited there?” Sam asked through a laugh as Dean thrust down on him, fighting to get his shirts off.
“You wear too many layers,” Dean responded hotly, mouth moving close to Sam’s ear.
“Like to give you something to work for,” his brother responded, hands hot on Dean’s skin.
Dean pulled back and sat up. “Sam, what do you want?”
“This is going in the right direction.”
Sam reached out for Dean, but Dean slapped his hand away.
“No, I mean…aren’t you, I dunno. Tired of hunting?”
Sam’s eyes went dark and he sat up, pushing Dean off to the side. “What are you getting at, Dean?”
“You just seemed to fit so well here.” Dean shrugged. “I mean, you got all those job offers. Don’t you ever want-?”
“Don’t you do that, Dean.” It wasn’t the face Sam made when he was annoyed, the one that was always a little amusing to Dean. This was the look that used to make demons tremble, and it sent a chill through Dean’s veins. “I don’t need to be thanked. I can’t even believe after everything we’ve been through that you want to start that martyr bullshit that fucked us up to begin with all over.”
“It’s not that,” Dean said.
“Oh? What is it, then?”
“I’m getting older, Sam. You’re getting older. We can’t hunt forever, you know that. I just thought, since we’re gonna have to settle down at some point anyway, well, why the hell not here? You can get a job and we can get a house and no one will know we’re brothers, we could even-”
“In the middle of Illinois?”
“Whatever, Sam. They don’t need to love us, just not arrest us.” Sam smirked a little. Dean took that as a good sign and continued. “Look, if we hate it, I’ve got a full tank of gas and there’ll always be more hunts. But we should at least try it out.”
“You’re serious about this.”
“Yeah,” Dean says softly. “Yeah, I am.”
“How much did you drink?”
“Enough to think it’s a good idea to settle down and fuck my brother?”
Sam laughed at him, but, in the end, that’s exactly what they did.
_______________________________________________________________
“You know, for a cabin in the mountains, this place is way too hot.” Dean shoves the blankets away and Sam’s arm in the process.
“You’re gonna be freezing in twenty minutes, and then you’ll wake me up trying to get back under here.”
“Nuh uh,” Dean says stubbornly, already beginning to feel the goose bumps rising on his skin. It’s going to be a long night, he thinks, but no way is he about to squirm back under the covers and prove his brother right.
It’s forty minutes after Sam said twenty when Dean finally gives up and tries to ply his brother’s limbs away from the mattress without waking him up.
Sam’s eyes open, blinking slightly, but he smiles. “Do I know my big brother or what?” he asks, raising his arm and the blanket to offer Dean an in. Grudgingly, Dean accepts.
“Shut up,” he says.
Sam pulls him in until his back is flush against Sam’s chest and kisses his neck. “Missed having nights like this,” he says, sleepy and warm.
Dean smiles to himself, then scoffs for his brother’s benefit. “You’ve got this biggest vagina of any girl I’ve ever dated, Sammy.”
“Probably the biggest dick, too.”
Dean chuckles lightly into his brother’s arm. “Definitely the biggest ego.”
Sam just hums against Dean’s skin. “Hey, Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“You wanna stay a little longer?”
“Oh no, no no no. You are not about to trick me into that, I know exactly what you’re up to.”
“C’mon, Dean! I gave you a present.”
“One? It was my birthday. Two? I didn’t actually want you to.”
“Please,” Sam says, drawing the word out. He begins to rock Dean, probably in the hopes he’ll get so annoyed he’ll cave. Dean definitely gets annoyed, but no way is he gonna cave.
“I don’t do Valentine’s Day, Sam. I’ve told you this, what, a thousand times now?”
“But Dean,” says Sam in the whiny tone of voice he used to try to stay up past his bedtime with. “We’re in the mountains. It’s romantic!”
“Sam, we have jobs to get back to.”
“Oh, come on. As if anyone is going to fire us for taking an extra week.”
“That’s not the point.”
“The point is: you just don’t want to because I do.”
“That’s not true, man.”
“You used to love Valentine’s Day when it was about sleeping with desperate chicks.”
Dean rolls over, endeared to the jealous, sour tone of Sam’s voice. “Well, if you want me to take advantage of you, that’s a completely different matter.”
Sam lets Dean kiss him, but is still pouting a little when Dean pulls back.
“I don’t like you,” he says, turning his back to Dean.
“I’m surprisingly okay with that.”
_______________________________________________________________
Sam and Dean did not exactly get a warm reception during their first few weeks in Antioch. First of all, there was the fact that everyone was still convinced Dean killed an old lady. Then they started to connect that Sam and Dean had known each other before the trial, which made Dean look guiltier and Sam seem even greasier than average lawyers. And finally, Sam and Dean decided that while everyone hated them, they might as well just go ahead and stop trying to hide the whole gay thing.
So yeah, as far as blending into their new home went, they weren’t exactly doing a bang up job. But they didn’t really care much, either. Sam and Dean had rarely ever had anyone but each other; they didn’t really need anyone else. Having a town full of churchgoers convinced they’re going to Hell was the least of their worries, a walk in the park as far as Dean was concerned.
“So guess what,” Sam said as he kicked the door closed behind him, arms full of groceries.
“Hmm?” Dean asked, raising his eyes from the paper. He still scanned them for possible hunts sometimes and figured he would until they had a proper house, or steady jobs, or anything really solid to tie them down.
“I, uh. I have an offer, Dean.”
Dean looked up to meet his brother’s eyes. “What, are you serious?”
Sam grinned. “Yeah, I guess one firm in this town doesn’t care if I am a gay heathen who supports psycho killers.”
“That’s beautiful, Sam. Practically poetry.”
“You wouldn’t know poetry if it bit you in the ass.”
“We should celebrate.”
“Celebrate like how?”
“Dinner out. At a really classy restaurant.”
Sam raised an eyebrow and leaned back against the sink counter. “You see any classy restaurants around here?”
“I know there’s a Biggerson’s,” Dean said, smiling and grabbing his brother’s wrist. Sam laughed and let Dean lead him out.
_______________________________________________________________
They head out bright and early, determined to finish what they’d hardly started the day before. They know where the yeti is holing up and they know how to draw it out, but the problem is that they still have no idea how to gank it.
These things don’t have much lore-they blend in well and are usually too far up in mountains to threaten enough human lives to get attention from hunters. But this one is moving down its mountain, snatching up idiot skiers that stray from the path and idiot hunters who are probably getting too damn old for this shit.
“Why didn’t we think of calling Bobby before we came out where there’s no damn signal?” Dean asks, scowling at his useless phone.
“I believe we were determined to get the job done ourselves,” Sam answers, sounding way more amused than Dean wants him to right now.
“Well, now we’re fucked.”
“It looks that way.” Sam stops as they approach the opening to the cave and stare in. “Should we really go in there without knowing what to do?”
“I’ve got guns, you’ve got another flare gun, we’ve got silver. Something’s bound to work, right?”
Sam shakes his head ‘no’ and Dean smiles and nods as if he’d agreed. He hears a small huff behind him as Sam trails him into the cave.
Dean shoots the thing with four separate types of bullets: regular, silver, lead, and bronze. Sam stabs it right in the heart. It stays on its feet until it has Sam in one hand and is about to take a bite out of him, and Dean-more to distract the damn thing from his brother than because he thinks the attack will be in any way productive-picks up a piece of torn up bark and hits the thing over the head. It collapses immediately from the small impact.
“Um,” Sam says, squirming to free himself from the giant hulk on top of him. “I’m pretty sure he’s dead, Dean.”
“Of course he’s not dead, Sam. That was a love tap. Get away from it before he wakes back up.”
Sam manages to push it off of him and stands up, kicking the yeti until it rolls over. He bends and checks its pulse. “No. It’s definitely dead.”
“That’s ridiculous. You set it on fire yesterday and it hardly noticed.”
“Well, apparently, all it takes is a hit to the head.”
“No,” Dean continues to insist. “What? Come on, that sucks! We can’t kill it by accident.”
Sam laughs. “I think you just did. Way to spoil our fun for the next few-shit, what the hell?”
The giant snowman next to Sam suddenly melts into the snow, the bones and abandoned ski gear in the corner the only evidence left that it had ever lived here.
“Dude,” Dean says, shaking his head. “This blows.”
Sam smirks. “We’ll find a better way to spend our days off next time.”
_______________________________________________________________
“Is that a-?”
Dean stood dumbstruck in the middle of the road, staring up at what his brother was asking about. “Yeah. Yes it is.”
“But that’s not…dragons aren’t real.”
“That one might be.”
The dragon cried out, spitting fire onto the city’s fire station. Ironic, thought Dean.
“What is a dragon doing here?”
“Dude, I have no idea, but if that thing gets as far as our motel, I’m gonna be pissed.”
“I guess we should stop it,” Sam said, turning to Dean with a slightly exhilarated grin.
“Fuck yeah we should stop it,” Dean agreed. “How do we stop it?”
“Tender underbelly,” Sam answered. Dean raised an eyebrow and Sam shrugged it off. “What, haven’t you ever read The Hobbit?”
Dean rolled his eyes, took his gun out, and fired one shot into the air, quieting the chaos for a moment. “Alright, all you screaming people running around the dragon’s feet, please do everyone a favor and get the fuck out of our way.”
_______________________________________________________________
“I don’t want to leave already,” Sam says.
“Life is really hard, Sammy.” Dean grabs up his bag and pulls the strap over a shoulder. “Our work here is done. We are sorely missed back home.”
“It’s not too late to change your mind you know,” Sam says, trying to sound alluring. “Valentine’s Day is just a few hours away.”
“Hence why I am pretty happy to say that we are on our way ou-”
Dean stands in the doorway and stares out for as long as he can without freezing to death. Sam appears next to him and snickers as they look out the door.
“You were saying?”
Dean lets the door slam shut. “What are the chances of someone coming to move the snow out of our path back to the car before tomorrow?”
Sam wraps an arm around Dean’s middle, resting his chin on his brother’s shoulder. “Slim to none,” he says, sounding very happy as he presses his lips against the skin on Dean’s neck.
“I hate you, Sam.”
“That’s too bad for you,” he says. “Happy Valentine’s, Dean.”
_______________________________________________________________
Dragons are big. Exceptionally so. Also, dragons breathe flames when they are pissed. The dragon Sam and Dean were fighting was pretty pissed, if the amount of fire they had to dodge was any indication.
Dean fell to the ground, evading a sharp, spiked tail as it swung just over his head, and rolled back onto his feet, looking around quickly to double check that Sam was okay. Sam was better off than Dean was for the moment; he ran between the creature’s claws, taunting the damn thing when he was too fast for it. Dean took advantage of this distraction to fire off a few rounds into the unarmored spot just above the dragon’s stomach, hoping he could drop it that way.
It didn’t quite work. Dean had just enough time to watch yellow eyes the size of his head swivel to face him before he was being knocked onto his back by the tail he’d so masterfully dodged moments earlier.
At least it’s not going after Sammy, he thought as the dragon hissed-thankfully without fire-and advanced on him.
Dean looked down at the apparently useless guns in his hands and shot the dragon three more times just out of spite. It didn’t do much to improve the dragon’s mood, and its measured steps sped up.
“Do something,” he damn near squeaked as the monster’s sharp claws settled themselves, one on each side of his head.
It smiled at him; Dean could smell its breath, and his only relief for the moment was that going out facing a dragon was a pretty fucking awesome way to die.
Dean closed his eyes tight, expecting to feel the teeth sinking into him any moment. They didn’t. The hot air abated and Dean sighed, knowing that this meant his idiot brother had found some desperate way to get the thing’s attention and was almost definitely in trouble now.
He opened one eye.
“Fuckin’ a, Sam,” Dean muttered to himself when he caught a glimpse of exactly what his brother had done.
The dragon bucked wildly, trying to toss Sam off it. Sam held fast to it with one hand, jeans torn and bloodied where the spikes on its back were slicing into him. In his free hand, he held a long knife.
Dean rolled his eyes. Sam had clearly read one too many King Arthur legends and now Dean had to find a way to get his sword-waving knight-in-plaid-and-bad-hair off of a flame-throwing, incited, overgrown worm before Sam got himself stabbed somewhere it wouldn’t just be annoying.
He climbed higher on the beast and brought his arm down quickly, again eluding the swats of the dragon’s clawed arms. The knife pierced right into one eye, and then Sam pulled back and sank it into the other.
The dragon shrieked, loud enough to shatter the stained glass on the nearby church, which had somehow avoided serious damage until that point. He flopped onto his side, not dead, but too much in pain to stay a threat, at least for the moment.
Dean smiled until it connected that his brother had been on the damned thing’s back and was now nowhere to be seen.
“Fuckin’ a, Sammy,” he repeated, crawling towards the danger instead of in the direction he probably should have been going. He shouldn’t have been able to stand up yet, not with the force of the fall he had earlier, but he raised himself to limp anyway, more interested in finding his brother and making sure Sam was okay than in his own wounds.
“Sam?” he cried out. No response.
Shitshitshitshitshitshit, one half of his brain repeated. The other half replied, shut the fuck up, I’m trying to concentrate.
The dragon made an angry sound as he approached; Dean figured it could smell him. He looked around for the knife Sam must have dropped. No way was he getting his brother out of this alive if that thing got back up and started thrashing around blindly.
He spotted it, the silver blade reflecting sunlight in a way that would have been obnoxious if it weren’t helping him. It took less than ten seconds for Dean to dive and grab the knife, turning and planting it deep in the soft flesh the dragon exposed by falling onto its side.
Dean was only distantly aware of the cheering of a crowd in the background as it gave one last cry and died. All he could think was that he still hadn’t seen Sam.
“Sammy,” he cried out again, running to the opposite side of the dragon. There was a pile about fifteen feet away from where the dead dragon was lying and Dean ran to it, kneeling immediately when his eyes confirmed that the lump was his brother.
He took Sam’s head into his lap and shook him lightly.
“Sammy, come on. Wake up.”
Slowly, Sam obeyed, smiling slightly as he recognized Dean.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, completely out of breath. “Who would’ve thought killing one measly dragon would be such a pain in the ass?”
“Are you okay?”
Sam shook his head, turned toward his brother, and promptly passed back out.
_______________________________________________________________
He wakes to the smell of something delicious. The scent is so damn inviting that Dean actually gets out of bed without half a minute of hesitation or grumbling to investigate it.
Sam is standing at the stove, so Dean wraps an arm around him from behind and Sam turns to face him.
“I’m making breakfast,” he says excitedly.
Dean feels his stomach drop, but he forces a smile onto his face. “Awesome,” he says, trying to convince himself even Sam’s cooking couldn’t possibly taste bad when it smelled the way this did. Then again, Dean’s been up here in the mountains eating his brother’s crappy cooking for a week now, so the chances are Dean’s just starting to get Stockholm Syndrome.
“Sit down,” Sam demands, gesturing the way a mother would. Dean snorts, thinking that the only thing that could make his brother more ridiculous right now would be an apron.
“Chocolate chip pancakes,” Sam announces, setting a plate down in front of Dean. “Bacon. Coffee.”
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Where did you get all this shit in the middle of an avalanche?”
Sam looks down at the table, ears slightly pink. “I brought it. Just in case.”
“Just in case,” Dean says, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You planned this?”
“I didn’t plan the avalanche.”
“So you thought I was just going to cave because you said you wanted Valentine’s Day, huh?”
“There’s a precedent for you caving, Dean,” Sam replies, cocky smile on his lips. Dean alternately wants to punch and taste it.
“I’m surprised my pancakes aren’t heart shaped.”
Dean sees his favorite scowl across the table and digs in to his breakfast, feeling pretty accomplished considering he’s only been up for five minutes.
He freezes as soon as the food’s in his mouth and blinks across the table, a little bit in shock.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asks, sounding crestfallen. “You don’t like it?”
“No, nothing,” Dean says, poking his food suspiciously. “It’s…actually really good.”
Sam smiles, says, “I tried really hard this time.”
Dean doesn’t bother to respond, just keeps shoveling bites of pancake down.
“Now can I have Valentine’s Day?” Sam asks as he watches Dean finish and take his plate to the sink.
Dean sighs and walks out of the room.
_______________________________________________________________
“Hey,” Sam said, blinking at his brother through heavy eyelids.
Dean smoothed a hand over his forehead, pushing the sweaty hair out of his eyes and pretending not to check his temperature.
“Hey.”
“God, I feel like shit.”
“You look worse, I promise.”
“Thanks, Dean.”
Dean smiled weakly and leaned over the bed to kiss his brother. “You’re gonna be okay.”
“Shit, tell that to my fucking ribs.”
“Yeah, well, when you throw yourself on the mercy of a dragon…”
Sam started laughing very suddenly, immediately crying out in pain from the exertion but not quite able to stop himself.
“What’s funny?”
“Dude, did we seriously fight a dragon? I was sure that was a fever dream.”
Dean snorted. “It happened.”
“Dragons aren’t real.”
“I think I remember you saying that just before it tried to eat you, too.”
“Where the hell did a dragon even-?”
“Yeah, I have no fucking clue. Doesn’t seem like another one is around, though, so that’s good news.”
Sam stayed quiet for a few minutes, pensive. Then he smiled and laughed a little. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Dean took Sam's hand, gave it a light squeeze. “Man, next time you do something that crazy, I am going to kill you.”
“And the King of Empty Threats strikes again.”
Dean smiled and let go of Sam. “Anything you need? There’s a store right down the street.”
Sam blinked slowly and looked around, took in his surroundings for the first time since waking up. “Where the hell are we anyway?"
Dean fought to keep his smile in check. “Home.”
"Home?" Sam asked with a raised eyebrow.
Dean nodded. "Home."
"We don't have a home."
"We do. And, uh, this is it."
"Where did we get a home? When did we get a home? And, possibly most importantly, why does our home look like Martha Stewart lives in it?"
Dean shrugged. "I tried to ask for a crappier place but they kind of insisted. And since I'd already put up a fight to keep you with me instead of sending you to the hospital, they won by arguing that you should have a better bed."
"Who is they?"
"Uh." Dean shook his head, as puzzled by what he was about to say as he knew Sam would be hearing it. "The entire town."
"How long did I sleep?"
"Just long enough for everyone to double check with each other and realize that they really did just watch two guys slay a fucking dragon."
"A dragon," Sam muttered under his breath. "Still haven't gotten used to that one."
"Yeah, it's all pretty weird."
"So what happened? Last time I checked everyone in town hated us."
"It's gone crazy out there, Sam. They keep treating me like some kind of hero. Every time I walk outside, there's a fucking crowd. The mayor was over here twenty minutes ago to make sure you were doing okay and pretty much pushing his wife's chicken soup on me like it was going to miraculously fix all our bumps and bruises. Then he asked if I wanted his job."
"What?"
"No joke, Sam. He said they all talked it over and felt you and I should be in charge."
"They don't even know us!"
"I know. Could you imagine us with a town? Shit, we can't even take care of ourselves."
"So what'd you say?"
"Said I'd rather have a job picking up garbage."
"Mmm, I could get behind you wearing one of those little blue jumpsuits to work."
Dean glared. "I'm not gonna pick up the garbage, Sammy.”
Sam pouted slightly, reaching out for Dean. He slid into the bed as carefully as he could manage, hoping not to jostle Sam too much or upset any of his own bruises.
“Did get a job, though. Figured since you’re going to be recovering and I didn’t feel inclined to accept free money on top of the free house.”
“What’re you doing?” Sam asked, already sounding half asleep.
Dean rubbed his face into the crook of his brother’s neck. “Working for Tony the Mechanic,” he replied with a grin.
“Didn’t Tony the Mechanic tell you to go to Hell and take me with you when you applied last week?”
Dean huffed a laugh into Sam’s skin. “Yeah. He came begging me to work for him the other day. Offered to give me the garage and said he’d understand if I decided not to keep him on the payroll.”
“This is fucking weird, Dean.”
“Yeah.”
“You think it’ll settle down soon?”
“Sure, it’ll have to. We’ll just do our jobs and they’ll get used to us and everything will be calm.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, nodding into his pillow. He yawned as he added, “It’ll be nice.”
_______________________________________________________________
“I hate life without the internet,” Sam sighs, shutting his laptop too hard.
“We’re lucky we still have power,” Dean points out, eyes trained on the TV.
“It’s not an avalanche or something. We’re just snowed in. We should have reception.”
“See what happens when you will crappy weather on us just to get your way?”
“First of all, the snow is not my fault. Second, I’m not even getting my way, because you’re being an asshole.”
“I’m not being an asshole, Sam. I’ve told you I don’t do Valentine’s, I don’t get why it’s suddenly so important to you. You never made it an issue before.”
“Right. So is one year so much to ask for?”
“I just don’t see why it matters, Sammy.”
“Don’t Sammy me!”
“Wow, you really just said that.”
Sam turns from the doorway to glare at Dean.
“Are you seriously getting pissy about this?”
“Yeah, Dean. I seriously am.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not. I put a lot of work into making this something nice for you, you know. Not just because it was your birthday, because I genuinely wanted you to get a break. And because I wanted one, too. And because I thought, just maybe, you’d cut out your macho bullshit if it was just us and return the fucking favor.”
“Sam,” Dean begins, but Sam turns and enters the bedroom, closing the door behind him in a way that makes it clear Dean is not welcome to follow.
_______________________________________________________________
Things didn’t exactly go the way Dean had planned. As soon as Sam was well enough to take care of himself at home, Dean started heading down to the garage to work. By then, the crowds outside of their house had mostly disappeared, but people on the street still stared, and Dean had more customers bring in perfectly okay cars, trumping up something they think might be wrong with them just to talk to him, than real customers.
At first, the attention was kind of nice. He would give everyone his best smile and send them on their way, no harm done. But after a while, it started to make him pretty uncomfortable.
Sam figured out what was bothering Dean before he even started to deal with it himself, so he already had a plan by the time he went back to work.
Dean wasn’t around when Sam made the arrangement, but what it more-or-less came down to was Sam agreeing to help Mayor Madeleine run Antioch as long as he got no credit for it and the people agreed to leave Dean the hell out of it.
Dean was annoyed at first, thinking Sam was trying to take a bullet for him, but, after a month or so, he realized that, however much Sam rolled his eyes and made fun of it with Dean, he was happy. Dean could read the look in Sam’s eyes and the tiny turn of his lips. And since the whole point of settling down was to fit in somewhere, really fit in for once, Dean wasn’t going to begrudge his little brother anything that made him feel at home.
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Fighting with Sam has never been a strength of Dean’s. He rarely wins when he’s in the right, and the longer he sits in front of the TV trying to ignore the waves of hostility flowing out of the bedroom, the more he realizes he’s wrong this time. Sam does a lot for him and knowing that his brother is possibly regretting that makes Dean feel a sense of wrongness that goes all the way to his bones.
He doesn’t come out all day, not once. Dean doesn’t knock or try to apologize; apologies aren’t really his thing. Dean figures if he’s going to say sorry, he’s going to have to find a better way than I’m sorry.
He turns the television off, heaving a put-upon sigh he knows Sam will never hear. Then he gets up and starts digging through the cabin, hoping to find some way to make things up to Sam.
_______________________________________________________________
Antioch was home to Sam for months before it was home to Dean. Sam went in to the law firm he was made partner at the first day he went in after the dragon incident (which had annoyed Sam until he came home from a case completely convinced he’d earned it) and did his job well, relished the chance to finally get that dream he’d been forced to leave behind when he left Stanford.
Instead of feeling intruded upon when the mayor knocked on the door or called every two hours, Sam dealt with it perfectly, was actually quite the little politician. But Dean just sat at home after work, a little resentful that he was being robbed of his brother’s company.
It all changed one day in August when a girl walked into the garage he worked at, headed straight for where Dean was working, and hovered near him until he was forced to acknowledge her.
“Sweetheart, I’m busy right now. If you need someone to look at your car, you’re going to need to talk to one of the other mechan-”
“I don’t drive,” she said, words rushed.
“Oh. Uh…then why are you at a garage?”
“I was there, you know. The day you guys killed the monster, I saw it.”
Dean scowled. “Yeah, so did the rest of the town. Look, I need to work, okay?”
She shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. I have a problem. I was wondering if you did things like that often.”
“Killing dragons? I was pretty sure they didn’t exist until then.”
“But you weren’t scared. You knew how to fight.”
Dean tilted his head at her and then nodded, not quite seeing where she was going.
“What else do you know how to fight?”
“All kinds of things.”
“Can you fight ghosts?” she asked, laughing. “I know that’s a stupid question, but if people can fight dragons, I thought maybe…”
“You got a ghost problem?”
“I think so,” she said slowly. “It hasn’t killed anyone, but it hurt my dog. Threatening messages are showing up all over the house. It’s scaring me.”
“Alright, yeah,” Dean said, wiping his hands off on his work pants. “Yeah, I can help you with that.”
She smiled. “When can you?”
Dean looked over his shoulder and shrugged. “Right now, let me just run and tell my boss, alright?”
Dean took care of the ghost without even bothering Sam about it and thought that would be the end of it. But the next week, a guy showed up, claiming that someone told him Dean was the man to see about weird problems. Before Dean knew it, he was working hunts from Antioch and the nearest three or four towns as often as he was fixing cars.
People began to respect him for this the same way they respected Sam for whatever boring ass policies he was responsible for. Together they made a pretty good team. Sam kept things together, Dean made sure they were safe.
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Dean knocks at the bedroom door. “Are you about done crying in there?”
Sam opens it just enough to glare. “I’m not crying. I’m reading.”
“Sure, princess.”
“What do you want, Dean?”
“My Valentine?” he asks, smiling awkwardly.
Sam raises an eyebrow and lets the door swing open the rest of the way. “Is something cooking?”
“Kind of,” Dean replies. “Come see.”
Sam follows him out to the dining room and snickers. “You reheated the breakfast I made you, Dean? That’s really romantic, I’m blown away.”
“Trust me, you didn’t wanna eat any of the other shit in the pantry.” He smiles and motions for Sam to come closer. “Besides, I may have added my own touch.”
Sam leans over the table and his face goes soft for a moment before he swallows it and gives Dean a mocking look. “Heart-shaped pancakes, Dean? Really?”
“It’s Valentine’s Day, haven’t you heard?”
“You’re an idiot,” Sam says.
“You’re an idiot’s Valentine.”
Sam smiles, showing dimples. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
_______________________________________________________________
Two idiots broke their legs and one moron broke a rib attempting to use the skills they learned watching Dean fight supernatural creatures before Dean accepted that he was creating hunters whether he wanted to or not, so he might as well make them decent ones.
He started holding lessons every Wednesday night and people would show up from hours away to learn. He was good at teaching, had done it before with Sam, and, after a year or so, he produced nine or ten decent hunters in Antioch alone. To his relief, none of them wanted to be real hunters, not many of the people coming in from other towns did, either. They just wanted to be able to take care of themselves and their own, so Dean made sure they knew the basics. The town got a reputation among hunters for being the safest place in the country, and often other hunters would stop by just to see if the rumors were true.
Sam and Dean had been living under their real names since after the dragon incident, but the people of the town didn’t take it seriously when one of them accidentally slipped up and said ‘brother.’ They took it as a euphemism for ‘boyfriends who are possibly married because they have the same last name and isn’t that weird, we didn’t even know that was possible in this state.’ Sam and Dean never bothered to correct them.
Nobody troubled them about being gay, not after they’d saved everyone in town’s life, at least. Even the fire-and-brimstone crowd who’d given Sam and Dean the nastiest glares when they’d first moved into Antioch would have been happy to throw a gay pride parade if Sam or Dean had asked it.
The really great thing about this was that when hunters rolled into town who had known them as brothers and asked for them as brothers, the townspeople would just laugh, assuming the hunter had to be a friend because they were in on the joke. The hunters would leave trying to puzzle out what they’d said that was so funny, but they never connected just how close Sam and Dean were, and the people of Antioch never connected that they really were brothers.
It was kind of perfect as far as Dean was concerned and as the years passed, he only loved it more. It really was home, even if it wasn’t perfect and they didn’t get to be together 100% of the time. It was more happiness than Dean had ever thought they’d get.
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“Thanks, Dean,” Sam says as they’re drifting off to sleep.
Dean tightens his grip on his brother, but plays it off. “I mean, it wasn’t all bad for me, either.”
Sam sighs. “Not for the sex, jerk. For letting me have my Valentine’s Day.”
Dean presses his lips to his brother’s shoulder and whispers against his back, “I meant that, too.”
“Really?” Sam asks.
“Well, that and the sex was pretty nice.”
Sam slaps an arm behind him lazily, hitting Dean’s side.
“This whole thing was fun, Sam. Thanks for planning it.”
“Yeah, no problem. It was nice to get away.”
“Yeah,” Dean says slowly. “You wanna hear the weirdest thing, though?”
“Hmm?”
“I kind of miss being home.”
Dean can hear the smile in Sam’s voice when he answers. “Me, too.”
“The snow was lighter today. And someone will be by in the morning to clear the path for us.”
“Yeah,” Sam sounds half asleep, so Dean figures he can get away with being a little maudlin.
“I’m glad I got to be alone with you, though,” he says gently. “It was the best birthday present ever.”
Sam makes a content sound. “Shut up and let me sleep, Dean.”
“Aww, Sammy. I love you, too.”