Title: forever is the space between
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Warnings/Spoilers: none; vague spoilers through 8x16
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~1,850
Summary: Sam has questions about the future; Dean has baggage, and memory foam, and maybe some answers, too.

Notes: This is kind of a coda to 8x16, but also just kind of a reflection on the conversations about their future that have taken place so far in S8. It also turned out kind of shmoopy in the end. Go figure. ;)

Sometimes Dean has no idea what he'd do without Sam and his random, middle-of-the-night questions.

Other times he'd really rather be sleeping. Or driving in companionable silence, depending on the situation. But all of that is neither here nor there because it's three am, and Sam has just padded into Dean's bat cave bedroom and asked him possibly the most random question he's ever asked him. Which he follows up with the entirely unnecessary statement, "I'm serious, Dean."

Then Sam stops leaning on the door frame, comes right on in and plants himself at Dean's desk.

Dean hadn't been asleep yet. In fact, he'd been listening to Dark Side of the Moon on his kick-ass new turntable, reliving his youth, so to speak. So what if Eclipse had ended twenty minutes ago. Since then he's been lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling and marveling at the whole set up all over again. Because it hasn't gotten old yet, the awesomeness of actually having his own room, a room that doesn't in any way resemble a skeevy motel room, for the first time in his life. He'd been listening intently, too, first to the music, and then to the kind of deep silence that he doesn't think he's felt since they last crashed at Bobby's what feels like a million years ago now. And Bobby's place didn't have anything on the kind of intense, underground quiet they have here.

All the same, asleep or not, he has to pinch himself now. Twice, in fact, because he's just not sure he's heard Sam right.

"Say what now?"

"I want to know what you tell people about us. You know, if they ask."

"I'm gonna need a little context here, Sammy."

"I don't mean the hunter thing, I mean everything else." He raises his eyebrows in a way that suggests, well, everything else. Then he frowns and says, "No one's ever really asked me, you know? Either they know we're brothers, or they just assume whatever they assume."

"Let me get this straight. You're asking me to put a label on this? On us. Now."

"Uh, yeah. I guess I am."

"Sam, we've been doing this… What, pretty much our whole lives? And you're asking me this now?" Dean sighs. "Don't even say it."

"Say what?"

"You were going to say better late than never."

"I—"

"You were."

"Okay, fine, but Dean… I'm trying to be serious here."

And oh, yeah, Dean can tell that he is, what with that serious puppy dog look he's got going on. Then Sam raises his eyebrows.

"Would you ever pretend we weren't related? You know, just to make it easier to-"

"No," Dean says quickly. "No, never."

"Hmm." Sam seems to mull this over for a moment. "Okay."

"Where did this even come from? We don't know people anymore. Certainly not anyone who's going to get curious about our sex lives. What the hell are you worried about?"

"I'm not worried, I just… I found some old letters. In the files in the archive."

"Okay. So?"

"Turns out there was a gay couple. They, uh… They told the rest of the group they were brothers, you know, to avoid scrutiny. Turns out everyone knew anyway, but…" Sam shrugs, and looks over at Dean, like he's supposed to have something to say to that.

"Right," Dean says, completely dumbfounded. "So what, you thought we could…" He tries to wrap his mind around Sam's point, and fails miserably. "Sorry man, I got nothin'."

"It just got me thinking, that's all. Times have changed, right? They probably wouldn't have had to hide if they were here now."

Dean nods, trying to follow. "And you thought we could, what, play the happily married-in-some-states gay couple to throw the paparazzi off our real identities? What does it even matter?"

Sam sighs. "Look, never mind. I'm sorry I said anything."

"No, I get it."

"No, you don't. Forget it."

They sit there in silence for a second, Sam fiddling with a pen on Dean's desk, and Dean staring out somewhere past him.

"Everything," Dean says after a moment. "That's what I tell people when they ask about us. I tell them that there's nothing we aren't, that we're, uh, everything to each other. Because it's true."

Sam just stares at him for a moment, and Dean tries very hard not to squirm out of his skin. He has no idea where that had come from, but he's pretty sure he'd like to take it back right about now.

Then Sam says, "Wait, have you actually told people that?"

"Sure. Cas, Benny." Sam's face works into a frown at Benny's name, which Dean ignores. "Bobby, Jo. Sure, Sam, I've told people. It comes up, you know?"

"You told Bobby about us?"

"Bobby knew for years, Sam."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Dude, it was Bobby."

"Right."

"So yeah, I've told people, no big deal," Dean says, which is kind of a lie, and kind of a huge understatement, but whatever. "If they're really curious, I tell them we've got a kind of messed up family dynamic, due to Dad being gone all the time when we were kids."

Dean winks, and Sam laughs.

"That's one way to put it."

Dean shakes his head. "You know, this may be the weirdest conversation we've ever had."

"Maybe," Sam admits. Then his face turns thoughtful. "You know, I think I'd tell them it's a little like being married."

Dean coughs in surprise. Then he rolls his eyes because, well, the thought of being married to Sam is kind of hilarious. "Okay, that's a new one. You sure you're not confusing me with someone else?"

Sam gives him a hard look, and Dean wonders what the hell he said.

"You know, I've never gotten that about you," Sam says after a moment.

"Gotten what?"

"This whole thing you have where you think that in order for me to be happy, you have to be alone. That you have to give me up, or something."

Clearly this has been on Sam's mind a while, Dean thinks. He isn't exactly surprised. These seemingly random conversations always have some gripe at the core - always have, always will.

"That's it, right?" Sam continues. "The thing is, you've already tried that. And I ended up right here, Dean, in case you hadn't noticed."

Dean takes a deep breath, because wow that last part came out of nowhere, and says, as calmly as he can manage, "And I'm grateful for that, Sammy, but once these trials—"

"Once these trials, what? It's suddenly over? You've told me a million times that it's never over. I mean, I don't know what's in store for either of us, but-"

"Sam-"

"Dean, I swear to god, if you say anything about a light or a tunnel or me and Viagra, I'm going to punch you."

Dean runs a hand over his face. "Look. We want different things, Sam. We've always wanted different things."

"What if we don't? What if I said I wanted this. Forever. What if we make it out of this, and what if we could be hunters, and men of letters, and… And what if we could stay here after it's all over. Forever, Dean."

Sam looks equal parts hopeful and terrified, his eyes flashing in the semi-darkness, so bright it hurts, burns in Dean's chest somewhere.

"I can't think like that," he says finally.

"Why not? Look, you know I'm… We're both scared. But we're also close – you said it yourself. We're close to ending this. A big part of it, anyway."

Dean shakes his head. "Sam, I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"Just forget it. I can't. Purgatory, Hell, all this… I'm broken, Sammy. I can't even imagine a normal life anymore."

Sam smiles a little. "It wouldn't be normal, Dean. It'd be us. And we're not normal."

Something flickers in Dean's chest. It breaks right through the heavy cloak of worry, of guilt, of it should have been me that's been weighing down on Dean's insides lately. It flickers, and then it flares, and then suddenly all he wants to do is press his lips to Sammy's and forget about every bad thing that's ever happened to them.

"It's late," Dean says, instead, because it is, and because Sam is being serious, and because as Sam has reminded him more than once, you can't end every conversation with sex. "Can't we just, I don't know, stop talking?"

He's not sure this is any better than his first idea, but it's worth a try.

"I'm just saying, think about it," Sam says. "Because I am. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Dean says.

"I mean it. Please," Sam says, and just stares at him all soft-eyed and hopeful, his voice quiet. "I need you to think about it."

Dean frowns helplessly.

"Yeah, I get it. I'll think about it," he says, and he figures it's mostly a lie, but he hears his voice and it sound a little rough, and a lot tired, resigned, even, and suddenly he's not so sure.

"Good. Now move over," Sam says, sitting down next to Dean on the bed, pressing their legs, their shoulders together. He nudges Dean in the side with his elbow. "Time for your mattress to remember me, too."

Dean smiles a little, and then reminds himself, hey, boundaries. He narrows his eyes at his brother. "What's wrong with your room?"

"Yours is better," Sam says, and slides right on in under the covers. Suddenly Dean feels like he's twelve years old again, Sam crawling into bed with him, Dad on the couch, TV flickering in the darkness of some dumb motel.

"Damn straight it's better," Dean says, and feels Sam's long limbs press against his body, holding him together, familiar and warm.

He thinks about forever, and it extends just about as far as the distance between his lips, and the warm skin of Sam's neck. Dean thinks that's far enough for now. He likes it this way - this, right here, the entire universe compressed into this space between their skin. The future is complicated and enormous, but this, this is simple, this is Sammy. And it's all he needs.

He throws his arm over Sam's shoulder, half protective, half just lazy, and scoots in a little closer.

Sam chuckles.

"What?"

"Nothing," Sam says, though obviously, when is it ever nothing, right?

"What, Sam? Jesus."

"Nothing, Dean, it's nice, okay. I was thinking that this was nice." He tugs Dean's arm across his chest a little tighter. "It's been a while, you know?"

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Okay."

And then Dean just leans into the pillow, into the curve of Sam's neck, into forever, maybe, and smiles.

end