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He doesn’t notice it at first, afterall, what is a black smudge to a 4-year-old other than proof fun has been had?
Eventually though its presence is discovered and dutiful son that he is he tries to wash it off when his Mom sends him to wash his hands. Except neither soap nor scrubbing furiously can get the better of it, and eventually he has spent enough time in the bathroom Mom comes looking for him. Worried he’ll get in trouble he tries to hide both his hand and the tears threatening to fall from his eyes, but Mom sees right through him like she always does and carefully - her round stomach making it much more difficult than it used to be - kneels in front of him.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
Dean bites his lip but refuses to answer.
“Is there something wrong with your hand?” she reaches out and strokes a gentle finger under his eye, wiping away the tears he can’t hold back. He shakes his head but Mom just looks at him with a gentle smile until he slowly pulls his hand out from behind her back;
“It it it,” he sniffles, Mom keeps stroking his cheek soothingly, “it won’t come off,” he cries and lifts his hand so she can see the dark smudge stubbornly staining his skin. Mom looks at his hand, an expression he can’t name on her face, for a second then pulls him close in a comforting hug, rubbing circles on his back while the baby in her stomach kicks a greeting that makes Dean giggle through his tears.
“There’s something dark on your hand that won’t come off?” Mom eventually asks. Dean nods against her chest.
“Finger,” he says, holding it up for her to see.
“Oh, honey,” she kisses the top of his head then gently pushes him far enough away she can see his face. “It’s your soulmark, it won’t ever come off your skin, but only you and your soulmate will be able to see it.”
“Really?”
“Really.” She winces in pain at a rather more enthusiastic kick from inside. “How about we get out of here? Have lunch on the couch and I can tell you more if you want or I can read you a story.”
“Yeeaaah,” he yells and runs towards the kitchen, Mom following at quite a slower pace once she gets back up on her feet.
They eat peanut butter sandwiches and Mom tells him about soulmarks and soulmates and answers every question that comes to mind, him hanging onto every word even if he barely understands half of it. It’s one of the best days he’s had in a while even if he’d never tell her (or Dad).
The mark has just grown large enough he can make out the shape of the first letter when the world ends in flames and shouting and the weight of Sammy in his arms. It feels right in a way nothing else is right on this terrible first night of their new life.
~x~
Dean’s ten when the mark finally grows large enough he can see all the letters curving around his finger, the name the one he’s always expected it to be. He steals a cheap looking ring two days later and refuses to remove it no matter what Dad says.
Sammy leaves, leaves, leaves, and Dean goes where Dad tells him to, pulls a trigger here, lights a fire there, flirts with waitresses
(never the waiters, look Dad, aren’t you proud of me)
and comes back to yet another motel room with lipstick on his collar and smelling like cheap perfume and cheaper beer, the sound of asphalt under Baby’s wheel as they leave every town and city behind once there’s nothing else left for them.
Dean says “yes, sir” and “no, sir” at all the right places, does as he supposed to, expected to without complaint or resistance and still, one day, Dad leaves, too.
He keeps going through the motions - there are still plenty of sons of bitches out there who need ganking, people who need saving, and all that bullshit, but Dad isn’t answering his phone and Dean is getting worried enough to go against direct orders.
He climbs behind Baby’s steering wheel and heads towards California.
~x~
Having his brother next to him is elating, lets him breathe freely for the first time in what feels like years, is bittersweet and tinged with anger and hurt and the crackling of phantom flames, old and new, Palo Alto nothing but a memory in the rear way mirror.
They find Dad’s things, follow in what they believe to be his trail only for them to realize he’s long gone - if he’s ever been there. Sammy rants and raves, complains and picks needless fights and Dean tries to hold him tight enough he can’t leave.
The next time Sammy leaves he comes back.
~x~
Dad dies to save Dean
(take your brother
look after your brother
protect your brother)
and Sam dies because Dean has been failing his duties since he was four years old.
Making the deal is simple as breathing - simpler really - his only regret how little time the demon affords him, though thankfully enough to make sure somebody’s going to look after Sammy.
For forty years the only marks on Dean are the ones Alistair gives him.
Despite his confidence Dean is surprised to wake up after Roy pulls the trigger, though not as surprised as he is seeing his thirteen year old brother with a huge smile on his face.
He finds his real brother awkwardly trying to escape an eleven-year-old’s advances, alone save for a golden retriever in a deserted cabin, on the road to Stanford - driving home the point with seven inch nails that just because Sammy is his soulmate Dean isn’t Sammy’s.
~x~
The apocalypse ends, Dean’s a little fuzzy on the specifics but Cas comes by to personally apologize and assure them both angels and demons have all been confined to their own domains, for the next millennium at least. He leaves in a flutter of wings as he’s wont to do and while Dean might be a little sad to see his friend go he’s far more relieved they’re no longer at the flying dicks’ beck and call.
He offers Sam a ride to ‘anywhere’, taken aback by his vehement insistence he wants to stay, wants to keep hunting, doesn’t want to go back to school and the search for ‘a normal life’.
“It died with Jess,” he hesitates, then continues “honestly, it wouldn’t have worked out regardless, we both knew it we just pretended otherwise.” Dean nods and starts driving.
~x~
There are red caps on Maryland and ghosts in Michigan and somewhere along the way Baby picks up a weird noise Dean can’t localize so they decide to make a stop at Bobby’s scrapyard, the old man welcoming them with open arms.
Dean spends a week taking Baby apart and putting her back together while Sam gets his geek on in the library, and on their first evening they’re surprised when a sheriff’s car pulls up in front of the house and Jody Mills steps out. She greets Bobby with a kiss to his cheek and Dean and Sam with hugs, laughing heartily at their gobsmacked expressions.
A week later they’re back on the road, heading towards another case.
Gods but Sam has missed that cocky smile even if it’s directed at his girlfriend rather than… annoyed he demands Dean tells him what the hell he’s doing here, and before he knows it he’s back in the Impala, trapped in a tiny, enclosed space with his brother.
She looks just like he remembers, though the back seat might be a little tidier than last he’d seen it - not the only difference he sees once Dean pops the trunk showing off the changes to it.
What was meant to be a one off thing turns into a more permanent arrangement when Jess dies and Dad might be the only one with the answers - he owes her that much he thinks.
He supposes Wyoming is as good a place as any to avenge the dead, and when he no longer wakes to nightmares he assumes Jess agrees.
For a hot minute he considers going back to Stanford, to once more distance himself from temptation that might one day prove too much for him, but the truth of the matter is that with no one to hold a gun to his head there’s nowhere he’d rather be than next to his - to Dean.
And then he learns about the deal, and rather than just enjoy what little he can have he has to spend precious time finding a way out. Of course there isn’t one, and he’s forced to listen to the hounds tearing him apart and dragging him to hell.
He stops resisting the two-edged sword that is Ruby’s help, and by the time Dean’s back he’s in too deep with no way out.
~x~
Heaven is nothing like he imagined. There are neither people nor comfort to be had in his old memories, especially not these and their tale of everything that has ever been wrong with him.
Well, that’s not entirely correct, he is quite happy to see Bones again, had adored the dog, even more so because it had still liked him after he’d spilled his biggest, most shameful secret, had been a bulwark to the oppressing loneliness he, even now, won’t admit to. So he lies, tells his brother they were happy memories, ignores the stab to his heart when Dean admits to his old fear. There’s probably something very wrong with him, but he can’t help but be relieved when they have to run from Zacharia rather than continue the conversation.
~x~
He no longer craves demon blood, Ruby as well as the angels and demons are gone, their threat to the world gone with them for another thousand years. Dean, for some unfathomable reason, offers him an out - Sam thinks it’s nearly thirty years too late for that. Besides, he’d tried so many times, Stanford not the last of them but definitely the longest he’d succeeded, and even that had only been for a few years. He stays.
They fall into their usual routine: Dean finds the cases and Sam does the research and they take turns at Baby’s wheel. There are days spent in motel rooms and nights where Dean shows up smelling like smoke and beer and Sam may be a little jealous of every pretty woman his brother flirts with.
They’re celebrating another win - a ghost, because there seem to be more of them now than before the failed apocalypse, or maybe it’s just that they have time for them seeing as the fate of the world is no longer on their shoulders and they don’t have hide from their fellow hunters anymore - when Dean, rather than pick up on what the busty waitress is putting down, turns his megawatt smile at him and suggests they “get the hell out of here”.
Their motel is barely five minutes away, but they’re the longest five minutes of his life. However, his patience is rewarded when he closes the door and Dean grabs his jacket and pushes him up against the door and proceeds to kiss him.
It’s aggressive and full of teeth, maybe a little more like a precursory to a fight than sex, but it’s so damn good and Sam has wanted for so long he’ll take whatever he can have, even when Dean bites down on his lip, hard enough to draw blood, or drags blunt nails down his back leaving welts and bruises in his wake.
The door handle rattles and Sam’s vaguely aware of raised voice from outside, but nothing feels quite as important as the hunger in Dean’s eyes
(“god dammit Sam, stop fighting me”)
or the sound of a zipper opening, even the pain shooting through him from where his knees have made sudden and painful impact with a concrete floor is enough to shift his attention.
The hand on his arm might, though, seeing as both of Dean’s are otherwise occupied, which means there’s suddenly too many hands involved and while Sam isn’t going to protest the roughness - at least not yet - he has no interest in having anybody else involved in this tryst.
(“Sam! Sam! Sammy!” - it sounds desperate and far away, and there’s only one person in the world who calls him that and the sounds he’s currently making sound nothing like words.)
Sam shakes his head and in front of him Dean flickers, his skin pale with blue veins and looking nothing like his brother. He jerks back, something pulling at his arm keeping him in place, the sound of fighting penetrating the fog in his head; he pulls, once more and then a third time and finds himself in an abandoned factory of some sort, Dean trying to stick a knife dripping with blood into a fucking djinn. Sam thinks he’s going to be sick.
There’s a pipe just to his left that looks like he might be able to pull free, and with it he tries to sneak up on the djinn and once within reach he swings. The djinn goes down like a sack of potatoes and instantly Dean is there, stabbing the knife repeatedly into the djinn’s torso, not stopping until long after it’s dead and then he’s just sitting there, shoulders slumped and head hanging. Sam steps closer, kicks the dissolving corpse just to be on the safe side, then kneels down next to his brother.
“Hey,” he says lamely, trying to get a look at his brother’s face, but Dean turns his head as if he’d anticipated it. His chest is heaving, his breath coming in tiny, wheezing bursts, and the hand holding the knife is white with blood loss. Sam leans closer until their shoulders are touching.
“It’s,” is all he gets out before Dean turns towards him, quick as lightning, fury in his bloodshot eyes, his skin sallow and dark circle under his eyes. He looks worse than he’d done back with the faith healer where he’d been actively dying; Sam swallows and doesn’t say another word.
Eventually though Dean pulls the knife from the puddle of dissolved djinn, gets back to his feet and without a word heads to the entrance; Sam scrambles after him.
The ride back to the motel silent, even the ever present music turned off as if Dean can’t bear to listen to it right now. He pulls into the lot and parks, turns off the engine, gives Sam a look that clearer than words tells him to stay put then gets out and locks the door. He walks around the car, makes a quick stop by the trunk getting something, then walks the last few steps to the passenger door which he opens after a few seconds’ hesitation. He’s close enough Sam barely has room to leave the car, their chests brushing prompting Dean to take half a step back giving Sam room to sidle out of the way of the door which Dean shuts and closes, then herds him towards the room they rented - well, Sam actually has no idea how long it’s been since they drove into this godforsaken town looking for something that most definitely hadn’t seemed to be a djinn.
The key is pushed into his hand and Sam dutifully opens the door and steps inside, Dean right at his heels. He heads for the small kitchen table, figuring there’s no way he’s going to be let out of Dean’s sight right about now, and listens to the lock turning. He sits down and Dean comes over and places the paper bag he got from Baby’s trunk on the table in front of him.
“Eat,” his voice still laced with anger but there’s none of it in his eyes. Sam opens the bag, filled with burgers long gone cold, reaches inside and takes one, unwraps it and bites into it. Turns out he’s fucking ravenous and soon the back is empty, wrappings strewn about the floor.
Dean’s sitting across from him, not taking his eyes off of him, barely even blinking. It’s maybe a little more excessive than normal and probably borderline creepy, but it’s also not something Sam hasn’t experienced before and he knows the trick is to just wait until Dean’s ready to talk.
“A week,” which is shocking for a number of reasons, but especially because he doesn’t actually feel like he hasn’t had food or water for seven days, not to mention humans generally don’t make it that long without water. Still, not something Dean would lie about so he just looks at his brother hoping to get some more information.
Dean sighs and gets to his feet. “You need a shower, I’ll order more food,” he holds up a hand “yes, I’ll get some of your rabbit’s food” Sam smiles gratefully and slowly makes his way to the bathroom, wondering how he’s not only still alive but able to walk without issue. The fight in the factory could be attributed to adrenaline, but now? It makes no sense and yet he’s upright and moving on his own volition how impossible it might be.
The mystery is pushed aside in favor of getting undressed and getting into the warm shower. For a wonder the pressure is amazing and the water is nearly scalding the way he likes it, especially after a hunt gone wrong.
He grabs the bodywash, doesn’t realize it’s Dean’s until he has already filled his palm with the liquid, doesn’t examine why he uses twice as much as he usually would or why, once he’s rinsed himself, opts for a second scrubbing, making sure to wash every nook and cranny he can reach.
He’s contemplating turning off the water when the door opens and Dean steps into the room;
“You done?” he asks and Sam has never heard him sound like that before, but when he sticks his head from behind the shower curtain there’s nothing to see on his brother’s face.
“Yeah,” he says rather than comment on whatever emotion Dean probably won’t admit to have anyway, and reaches for the towel. Dried off he fastens the towel around his waist and pulls the curtain aside, surprised - though maybe really not - when Dean is standing right there, arms crossed over his chest.
“Took you long enough” his eyes roving every visible bit of Sam’s skin, presumably looking for any previously hidden injury. There isn’t any, except the needle looking wound on his shoulder where the djinn was feeding. Dean frowns at the sight, his face darkening with anger once more, but his hand gentle when he grabs Sam’s arm and leads him back into the room and guides him to the bed.
“Food’s on its way, but I wanna clean that before it gets infected,” the cold sting of antiseptic stealing his breath before he can complain or point out he just thoroughly washed everything, including the wound. His brother cleans and wraps the thing and then there’s a knock on the door. Dean goes to open, taking care to ensure the delivery guy won’t get an eyeful and then returns with another bag of food, this one steaming hot and smelling absolutely amazing.
He eats everything and drinks as much water as he can stomach and then he lies back and falls into a dreamless sleep.
~x~
He opens his eyes and stares into pure darkness wondering what the hell woke him up. The sound of breathing in his ear alerts him to the fact somebody is spooning him and between the mystery person and the pj’s
(I fell asleep in nothing but a towel, he thinks, didn’t I?)
he’s wearing it feels like he’s melting in the heat of the room. The thought barely ends before there’s a flash of color in the darkness, a splotch of orange yellow impossibly far away. He frowns and reaches for the light switch he knows should be on this side of the bed, except it isn’t there nor anywhere else he can reach.
His movements apparently enough to wake the person behind him and a familiar voice grumbles “what?”
“Just looking for the light,” he says, and once more something flashes far away.
“You won’t find it, the bulb blew before we went to bed, remember?” Sam shakes his head
(the light had been on, Dean sitting on the chair he’d pulled over to the bed when he fell asleep)
but stops mid-motion as the memory of the light bulb blowing just as a hand reached out to turn off the light.
“I… guess,” he says, sounding dubious, the arms around him tighten their hold a little then let go.
“You guess,” he laughs,” good thing we’re heading for the woods tomorrow, you’ve been working way too hard, it’s affecting your memory.
“It has?” a nagging in the back of his head makes him ask.
“Sure, just yesterday you were telling me about a plane crash you prevented ten years ago,” a smile creeps into the voice, “even though you don’t have to make up silly things like that, you’ll always be my hero.”
Sam can’t stop the quiet “fuck” escaping his mouth at the words, realizing why he feels like he’s burning up.
“Later, Baby,” fake-Dean says, then rolls over and apparently falls back asleep. Sam lies there in the darkness listening to his breathing and once he’s certain his imaginary brother really is asleep he slips soundlessly from the bed and into the living room where they keep their silverware.
As quiet as possible he finds a few knives and a carving knife then slips out into the darkness outside. Tracing the steps he’d taken the day before is easy enough, and for the first time since he was brought here he sees the outside of the djinn’s lair.
It’s an old brick building, clearly abandoned as evidenced by the smashed windows, the faded sign above the loading bay and the complete silence emanating from it; he looks around for a point of entry that won’t advertise his presence, smiles when his eyes land on a door nearly hidden behind what he hopes are empty boxes.
The door is surprisingly well-oiled and doesn’t make a sound when he opens it, the concrete floor clear of broken glass and other moveables. He pulls the carving knife from his belt and carefully makes his way deeper into the building until he sees something in the corner of his eye. Slowly he turns his head, the shape blinking in and out of existence, only giving him a few glimpses but enough to realize he’s looking at himself where he’s been left for the djinn to feed from.
“Don’t do it, Babe,” fake-Dean’s voice calls somewhere behind him, “stay here, with me, happily ever after with your soulmate like you’ve always dreamt of,” the voice slowly coming closer and when Sam turns around fake-Dean is standing behind him, hand in the air and close enough Sam can see the letters wrapped around his ring finger.
“No,” he cries even though he’s reaching for the hand, trying to make out the shape of the letters, “you’re lying, I’ve seen Dean naked often enough to know he doesn’t have a soulmark I can see.” There’s worry in fake-Dean’s eyes which are darting between Sam’s face and the knife in his hand; Sam lunges, letting his weight drive the knife through fake-Dean’s chest straight into his heart.
“I’m sorry,” tears streaming down his face as he watches fake-Dean’s life ebb away. For a terrifying moment he thinks he may have made a mistake and then the world glitches and he’s hanging among old machinery that hasn’t worked for decades, his brother - his real brother this time and not just another illusion made up by the venom in his system - is fiddling with his binding, a very dead djinn lying behind him with its face bashed in and head cut off. Sam is relieved when Dean has to carry him out to the Impala.
~x~
Turns out he’d only been the djinn’s lunch box for a day and a half
(“as if I’m not the best hunter you’ve ever met,” his brother says and pushes another glass of water across the table for Sam to wash the lo mein down with, and once satisfied Sam’s both eating and drinking and not about to keel over, scoffs “a week. As if”)
but aside from being thirsty, hungry and surprisingly filthy everything seems to be fine - he’d still conducted every test he could think of to be sure he was actually out of the illusion, the fact Dean willingly helped the most effective means to settle his mind.
“I think we should go somewhere far from here,” he said on the second day after Dean had gotten him out from the abandoned building, his brother nodding and wordlessly getting up and packing their things, carrying everything out into the Impala before returning offering Sam a hand.
The Impala purrs, nothing but the endless road ahead and behind when Sam looks to the side and sees the ring his brother’s worn for as long as he remembers, and wonders if maybe - impossible as it may sound - the djinn knew more than he’d given it credit for. He falls asleep pondering the question, still not in peak condition.
When he wakes - or rather, is woken - it’s dark outside, nothing visible but the moon and stars in the sky and the shape of a sign a little ahead of the car. He unfastens the seatbelt and gets out of the car, once more letting his brother take his arm and lead him down a nearly invisible path.
The night air is pleasantly warm and filled with the sound of waves hitting against the shore, excitement welling up in Sam with every step closer to the sound; they’re currently walking up an incline, the sand slips under their feet but eventually they reach the peak and Sam sees the full moon reflected in the dark water, only identifiable by the white foam on top of every wave lazily heading towards the beach in front of them.
Dean begins walking and since he’s still holding firmly onto Sam’s arm he has no other choice - wouldn’t have done differently anyway - but following; once they’re free of the slight hill they’d just braved Dean stops and Sam sees a small shelter, just big enough for the two of them to fit under.
“How long was I asleep?” he asks, certain Dean had made it before bringing him here rather than luckily stumble upon it.
“Long enough,” is the answer and then he’s pulled down on the sand.
They sit there for a while listening to the ocean and following the moon’s slow trek across the night sky, when Dean takes his hand causing Sam to look down. He squints in the dark, unsure if what he’s seeing is true or just wishful thinking, then lifts their joined hand, for the first time as far as he remembers sees Dean’s finger, the dark pattern curving his ring finger, the skin so pale it almost glows in the darkness.
“Your soulmark,” he breathes, voice filled with awe, hope, love.
“Samuel,” Dean says, “I’ve known for as long as I’ve known about you.” He’s looking out over the water, would to anybody but Sam look like he’s bored, like he doesn’t care about the outcome of this conversation. It’s a good thing Sam sees the nervousness in the set of his shoulder, the hope in the line of his mouth, and most of all the way he’s holding out his heart for Sam to guard.
He stretches out his left leg and points to his feet, “my big toe, in beautiful cursive Dean, the first thing I learnt to read,” he reaches over and puts his hand on Dean’s face, gently turns his head to him and with a smile brushes his lips against his brother’s.
It feels right in a way nothing else has before.