For a few precious hours, they have peace.
Dean figures this is just the calm before the storm that rests on the horizon, with the threat of Lucifer’s return sitting heavy on their shoulders, but it doesn’t seem to matter right now. Right now, they’re safe; they’re cocooned in a tiny bubble of unreality they’ve carved out for themselves, between the bodies that still lay on the bunker’s floor and the message they’ve left for the London chapter of the Men of Letters.
You shouldn’t have come here.
Leave us alone.
Be afraid.
And now, finally, they get to rest. It’s just the two of them, curled up real careful in Dean’s bed because his leg is a damn mess and Sam’s still fretting over it, but the important part is the bit where they’re together. Separating is never easy, especially with the possibility that one of them won’t come back, but it’s behind them, and Sam’s safe and whole in his arms, and Dean can finally breathe again.
They did it. They really did it.
“You think they’ll tell stories about this one?” he hums. Turns his face into Sam’s neck and closes his eyes, breathing in the heartbeat that he feels soft and steady under his lips. Keeps talking, real soft. “How Sam Winchester rallied together a rag-tag group of hunters and took down the Brits?”
Sam laughs at him, and his arms curl a little tighter around Dean’s middle, tucking him in close. They’re breathing as a unit, drinking in every moment they’ve got of this in the tiny break they’ve given themselves to rest up before moving forward. They’re only human, after all. “You know how they are. They’ll tell stories about a funny-looking wendigo if they can get anyone to listen.”
“Maybe.” Dean smiles, then breathes out slowly. Allows himself this moment to bask in the victory, because fuck if they haven’t earned it. They deserve to feel good about this, at least for a little while. “I think it’s a better story than most. You gave ‘em something to remember, Sammy. Something to share. I don’t think anybody’s gonna be forgetting what you did any time soon.”
Sam’s quiet, but it’s a good kind of quiet. The kind that means Sam’s all warm inside, maybe even blushing a little. Doesn’t do it as much as he used to, these days, but it’s a damn sight when it does happen. “Could be.”
Dean thinks about that as they drift off together, the name that Sam’s made for himself tonight. Maybe he won’t need to be the boy with the demon blood anymore, or the hunter who let Lucifer out of his cage. Maybe he’ll be able to leave behind every bad thing that people have learned to tie to his name, and maybe they’ll remember him the way that he deserves to be remembered.
Maybe, if they’re real lucky, people will remember Sam as a leader and as a hero. God knows that it’s the very least he deserves.
RIght now, though, Dean just gives his brother what little he can. He gives him a pair of arms to hold him, and a couple dry kisses to the front of his throat, and somebody to hold while he falls asleep. A heartbeat to listen to and a warm body to soothe him.
It isn’t much, but for now, it’s going to have to do.
Tag: ficlet
Mother’s day thing: none of this horrible stuff happened and Mary’s slowly found her place as a modern hunter and started trying to be a mother as well. Her boys hug her.
Hunting with three makes everything a little bit easier.
It takes some adjusting, sure- Sam and Dean are used to hunting as a pair, so there’s a period of uncertainty as they adjust to the new dynamic of having another set of eyes and ears and opinions- but realistically, it makes them all a little bit safer. Mary already knows what she’s doing, and hunting is something that all three of them are good at, making it a surprisingly effective catalyst for improving their functionality as a family unit.
So things start to change, slowly. Mary spends more and more time in the bunker and less and less time away, until suddenly all her things are in room 15 and she leaves the bed unmade most times when she leaves, acting less like a guest and more like a proper resident. She finds them in the kitchen in the mornings, she curls up in the library to read when they’re not hunting, and she even takes it upon herself to explore past that, visiting the garage and the dungeon and most of the other rooms that Sam and Dean frequent. Conversation starts to flow more easily, and after some time and some long, hard silences, they even start to touch on the tougher subjects- Azazel, John, Hell, and everything else that’s happened since the night she died.
All of them have old wounds, but slowly, together, they’re starting to heal.
Mary still doesn’t cook- she’s decided to spare them all that particular brand of suffering- and she still doesn’t tuck them in at night the way she did when they were small. She doesn’t sing lullabies unless she thinks she’s all alone, and she doesn’t spend every moment of her day fretting over her boys. But more and more often, now, come the little things- the tiny gestures and affections that remind and reassure Sam and Dean that, despite everything they’ve been through, despite how much she’s missed, and despite the long road ahead of them, she is still, and will never stop being, their mother.
“Goodnight,” she’ll tell them, always making sure to track the pair of them down before she heads to bed. They’ll be on the couch, or sitting together in the kitchen, or hunched over their respective laptops in the war room, and Mary will poke her head in and smile all sleepy-soft, robe tucked tightly around her. “I love you both.”
And every time, without fail, Sam and Dean will both get a little choked up, though they get better at hiding it over time. Trying to tone down the reaction to seeing the woman they’d spent so long without, alive and healthy and smiling. “Night, Mom,” and “sleep well,” and she’ll slip away again, and the both of them will be left breathless and smiling for a few extra seconds.
There are the little things, too, the ones she does by accident. The habit of pressing a tiny kiss to bandaged wounds after hunts, the sort of thing she apologized for at first before learning that neither Sam nor Dean seemed to mind the tiny bit of affection. The worrying, sometimes, that they’re not eating or sleeping enough, and the gentle scolding that follows. She still straddles the line between mother and friend, at times, but it’s becoming a little blurrier and none of them particularly mind.
“Y’gotta be more careful, Mom,” Dean tells her quietly after a particularly messy hunt. They’re all in one piece, but Mary got a chunk out of her arm and Dean had pulled her in close, his words muffled in her hair as he held her tight. It’s the Winchester way, to save these moments for near-death experiences, and the good arm that curls around him, gentle and warm, tells him that he isn’t the only one who needs it. “Don’t wanna lose you.” Not again.
Sam does the same thing, too. Gets more open with it over time, and before long, he’ll pull her in for a tight hug just ‘cause, wrap her up real careful in his arms until she feels like it’s never going to end. “Love you,” he’ll whisper, as if he needs to reassure them both of the fact, and Mary certainly doesn’t have a problem with that.
Things are still hard, sometimes. They’re not always great at talking to each other, and miscommunication hurts. There are arguments, and there are days when none of them say a word to each other, and there are messy follow-up fights that usually end in quiet apologies. Despite it all, though, they stay strong, and they stay together. With everything that’s happened, all three of them know better than to let that slip away.
Before anything else, they’re family. They’re Winchesters, and Winchesters will always look out for their own. Nobody else in the world will ever care for them as much as they care for each other.
They were careful. Kinda had to be when they lived a life like they lived but there was some sort of comfort that came with Bobby’s house. It was a constant that they had in a life that wasn’t constant. Dad liked it because it was a safe place that he could keep his boys when he didn’t want to bring them out on a hunt.
The boys liked it because it made them feel normal. At least for just a moment. They slept in a bed that was their own. They had a yard that they could play out in until the sun set. There was an actual dinner table that they were required to sit down at and eat supper per demand of Bobby.
While they were on the road, they were careful about what they did. How close they stood next to each other. How long they looked at each other. How many minutes passed in between the time that they both disappeared off into the bathroom. But then Dad dropped them off at Bobby’s with a vague estimation of when he’s going to get back and then he’s gone in a trail of dust left by the Impala and it’s just the boys and an old man who’s a little too soft around the edges when it comes to them.
There’s a stream that runs at the edge of his property and they’ll shout out at Bobby that they’re going to go exploring and Bobby will grunt back in response and then the boys will take off after each other, racing to get to the stream.
Sometimes Dean will get there first. Sometimes it will be Sam but regardless when they get there, they’ll fall to the ground in a fit of laughter.
The laughter will die in Dean’s chest though the moment that Sam rolls over on top of him, his skinny legs straddling Dean’s waist and the sun is making Sam’s hair a golden halo and Sam’s touching Dean’s face with such a soft touch that Dean feels his heart melting in his chest.
All that careful, paranoid caution completely disappears because there’s no one around for miles and it’s just them and Sam will bend down and kiss Dean, holding him against him, no rush in their movements because they’ve got nowhere to be.
Bobby will trek through the woods, in search of the boys because those two damn boys left their backpacks in the middle of the living room and Bobby damn near tripped over it and he had every intent to chew them out but then he walked upon them, with Sam straddingly Dean and they were kissing, slow and sweet.
He stumbled backwards, trying not to make a sound as he went back to the house. When he got back there, he simply picked up their backpacks and placed it in their room and then poured a stiff glass of whiskey and sighed to himself.
He knew that those boys were different, always attached at the hip. Wherever Dean went, Sam followed and vice versa and if he was being a hundred percent honest with himself, seeing those two boys making out on the edge of his property, it wasn’t the weirdest thing that he’s ever seen. Not by a long shot.
So he drank his whiskey and waited for the boys to come back, still living under the happy illusion that no one knew and Bobby had every intention of keeping it that way.
57/365
Just anything Sam/Mary. :3 If you want!
“Mom?”
Mary’s nearly startled by the sound of Sam’s voice, so absorbed in the book she’s gotten caught up in. It’s late, and she was sure that the boys were both already asleep, having already said goodnight to Dean and assuming that she’d just missed Sam, since he tended to go to bed earlier than his brother.
Tonight seems to be an exception, though, as she sits up a little straighter in her bed and smiles softly at her youngest where he stands in the doorway, looking a little unsure of himself. “Uh- sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“You’re not bothering me, don’t worry.” Things still feel fragile between them, but now that everything has started to settle down, she’s eager to set them right. She’s got thirty-something years of lost time to make up for, and any chance to talk to her boys is a chance that she won’t pass up on now. “Come on in.”
Sam smiles when she says that and steps inside, glancing around for a moment before moving towards her. The mattress dips under his weight as he sits on the edge of the bed, and Mary sets her book aside, crossing her legs and scooting a little bit closer to him. “Everything alright?”
“Yeah, of course. Everything’s- well, fine as it gets, I guess.” Sam shrugs, and Mary just smiles back at him, waiting for him to continue. He must be on his way to bed, already dressed in soft pyjamas and looking sleepy around the edges. “I just… I guess I just wanted to talk to you. Feels like we don’t talk enough.”
“We don’t, do we?” She frowns slightly, then reaches out to take Sam’s hand in both of hers, amazed as she often is by the sheer size of him. It’s hard to connect the man before her to the baby boy she left behind, but then she’ll meet his eyes and see the unfailing gentleness there and find it all a little bit easier to believe. “I’m sorry, Sam. I think that’s my fault.”
“No, it isn’t,” he’s quick to say, and his fingers curl around hers carefully. Gently, like he’s afraid of breaking her, and that thought just makes Mary’s heart ache. “We just… we just need to work on it, I guess. Together, right?”
That’s certainly not something that Mary’s going to say no to, so she smiles, nodding once as she gives his hand a careful squeeze. “That sounds about right. So- what do you want to talk about?”
That takes Sam a moment to answer, and he glances away, brow furrowed in thought. Laughs at himself a moment later and shakes his head before he starts talking. Doesn’t let go of her hand, though, and Mary thinks she likes that. “So… when I was in college, there was this girl. This beautiful, amazing, absolutely incredible girl.”
Mary stays quiet while Sam tells her all about Jessica Moore, and even when he gets past the happy parts with late nights and weekend getaways and ring shopping, even when his eyes go soft and sad and he tells her about the way he lost the love of his life, even when he can’t quite look at her as a couple tears slip free, Mary listens. She listens, and when it gets too much for Sam, she brings him into her arms, cradling his head against her chest and whispering to him how much she loves him, and how brave he is, and how desperately sorry she is that he’s suffered so, so much loss.
Maybe she wasn’t there for those thirty-something years, but here, in this quiet, private moment with her youngest child crying in her arms about a lost love, Mary thinks that she might be able to make up for it, one day at a time.
a stitch undone
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: Teen
Length: ~3k
Summary:
Years go by, all containing more of the same, and Sam feels himself unraveling. At least, he thinks he does, in the moments he can remember. Linear timelines don’t exactly make sense to him anymore. He isn’t sure how long they can keep going like this–despite the rumors, they are only human.
On AO3 (notes, too, didn’t put them on the post bc minor spoilers to fic)
Dean had made a point to put as much distance between them and Arizona as possible. Sam sometimes wondered at Dean’s keen skills of avoidance. They were uncanny.
They had struck a Northeastern path across the ‘States, skittering from one interstate to the other and lurking in motels when they had the cash. Sam had a theory that there were only fifty-two or fewer real motels in existence, and each hunt, week by week, brought them to another. At this point, they’d cycled through the lot of them several times over. Each time Sam saw the same green bedspread with those little mosslike circles crowding close to one another, he became a little more nauseated.
The Ancient Tradition of Geometric Problems
OhSam-spnlittlebro CelebratingSam challenge
Prompt: vellichor (a wistful feeling you get in used bookshops)
Pairing: Gen | Rating: G | Wordcount: 725
A/N: Thanks to samshinechester for the beta!The smell. It’s what gets him every time. Linen and leather and dust. Books like this would sit on a shelf, unchanging and uncaring whether they were read or not, a legacy in black and white.
He had walked through the narrow bookshop, trailing his fingers along the bindings, a small absent smile on his face. Dean left for the motel earlier; bigger cities like San Francisco always put his brother on edge. Bumping elbows with people on the street, Dean would look over his shoulder, scanning for a threat in the unknown faces. But Sam loved it, the anonymity of the crowd. He could slide right into it, fading into the tourists and the business people. No need for badges or false names because no one cared who you were in a city this size.
The waning sunlight of the summer had been lighting up the shop windows as they finished their interviews, and it had made him restless. Too bright to head to the motel, too early for dinner, Sam had walked the streets instead, hands stuffed in his suit pant pockets, the breeze off the Bay ruffling his hair, cool even in June.
This tiny bookstore, tucked back into an alley between a dive bar and a coffee roasting shop, was familiar. Palo Alto was only an hour away, and when he first moved to California, Sam would take the train north up the Peninsula. Friday nights, he would run out of school work and start to fill up on raw memories, so Saturday mornings, he would explore the City.
Sam hearing his mother say the words “happy birthday” for the first time in his life ❤️
Sam’s about to turn in – it’s been a good day, overall. He’s had some pie, because when would Dean not take the liberty to reinterpret his birthday for his own gain, and he’s had a couple beers and a good movie night, he’s got some presents, and he’s got a sunny morning to look forwards to after a good night’s sleep with nothing in particular demanding his attention tomorrow, at least as far as he knows. But that’s when his phone buzzes, and when he looks at the caller ID, his heart stops.
Mom.
“He-hey, mom. I’m, um. A little drunk, I hope you don’t mind,” he opens, stuttering not because of the alcohol but the nervousness that has suddenly flooded his system.
Mary breathes out and Sam can hear her smiling, and it makes him weak in the legs so that he has to sit down. He wrestles off his socks, but the laundry basket’s too far away so he puts them on the bed beside him instead to wait for now.
“I don’t mind that, Sam.”
Sam nods, although Mary can’t see it.
“I hope you don’t mind me calling,” she says then, her voice a little nervous and sad in a way that can’t be covered up.
“No,” Sam hurries to assure her, “No – not at all.”
A relieved sigh echoes over the line.
“I just wanted to tell you happy birthday,” he hears her say, and it makes his heart skip a beat, “So – happy birthday, baby. 34, isn’t it?”
It takes a long while until Sam can breathe again, and much longer until he can speak.
“Sam?”
“Ye-yeah. I’m here. I’m – I just – need a…”
He hears Mary nod, too, just as oblivious to the fact that Sam isn’t in the room with her to see it.
“Thanks, Mom,” Sam manages to finally say, “It’s… my 34th, yeah.”
“I’m sorry for missing out on so many before now.”
“It doesn’t – it wasn’t your fault.”
“Thank you, Sam. I hope you had a very good day.”
“I did,” Sam tells her quickly, “Dean – we had a good day.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there again.”
“It’s enough that you called. Really, Mom; it… means a lot to me that you did.”
He can hear a small smile in Mary’s breath.
“Good night, Sam.”
“Good night, Mom.”
Backup bloh 