More Wishes Than Stars (Sam/Dean, G)

[smalltrolven]

Title: More Wishes Than Stars
Artist: pixymisa
Author: smalltrolven
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: G
Word Count: 4,400
Summary: Dean makes a trial run at explaining all the things he’s been hiding to Sam.
Author’s Notes: Not my characters, only my words. Spoilers up through 9.05 “Dog Dean Afternoon.”  Written for the 2014 spn_reversebang, inspired by the fabulous art of pixymisa  Buckets full of stars thrown in her path to thank firesign10 for the timely and thorough beta.

Link to Art Masterpost
Link to Fic on AO3.

~~@~~!~~#~~

Sam is surprised to realize he’s awake, coming back to consciousness suddenly when he hears their car make a strange sound. He looks out the window, bleary eyes going wide at what he sees. “Dean, are we in Heaven or something?”

“Don’t think so, - don’t remember dyin’, do you?” Dean replies, hands on the steering wheel at ten and three, just like always.

Sam stretches a little and looks out the windshield at the strange view. “No, but the sky, all the stars, - kinda looks like that, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, they, uh, seem a lot closer than usual I guess,” Dean answers, sounding a little too composed about the situation to Sam’s ears.

“And the car, you see what’s different, right?” Sam prompts, gritting his teeth a little about having to pry every last useful nugget out of his brother. It’s all so unnecessary; he should insist that Dean just tell him everything, instead of this stupid two-step they always do.

“Yeah, I know, someone messed with the controls, even got a keypad thingy here.” Dean points down at the seat between them where a small control box rests near Dean’s thigh.

“What’s it do?” Sam asks, already guessing that Dean knows exactly what the box does.

Dean shrugs, a small smile passing over the corner of his mouth. “Hell if I know, guess I’ll try it.”

“No…wait…don’t!” Sam yells, reaching to stop his brother from - of course - doing the unthinkable.

Dean pushes one of the buttons on the glowing keypad more decisively and emphatically than is strictly necessary, like he’s got to prove something to himself just as much as to Sam, undoubtedly about who’s in control.

The stars disappear in a blink, and a perfect blue sky with puffy white clouds replaces them like a sudden scenery change in a movie.

“Whoa!” They exclaim in unison.

“Dean, don’t push anymore of those okay?” Sam asks, knowing it’s a stupid request before he even finishes his sentence.

But of course Dean can’t help himself, and he grins with childish delight as he pushes another button.

The blue sky fades into a more normal night sky, with the stars twinkling at their usual far-away distance.

“Wouldja stop pushing stuff until we know what the hell is going on!” Sam exclaims.

Dean laughs. “Alright, alright, calm down, Sammy. Let’s work it like a case. What do we know? What’s different than usual?” He still sounds too calm, maybe almost amused at Sam’s reaction.

“Well, we’re younger. Both of us. Like at least ten years younger,” Sam observes, leaning over to look at himself in the rear-view mirror, then holding out his hands to examine the backs of them. They’re smooth and scar-free in the moonlight streaming in through the windshield.

Dean looks at himself critically in the rear-view and cackles with surprise. “Hot damn, I look good.”

“And that, you’ve got it around your neck, - where’d it come from?” Sam points at the amulet hanging around Dean’s neck, trying not to sound overly emotional at seeing the thing again after all these years.

Dean reaches up and tugs at it gently, looks down at it for a long moment and looks back up at Sam, eyes misting over a little. “Never thought I’d see this thing again.”

“Yeah, it’s, uh, been a long time.  So, uh, where would it have come from, all of a sudden? And why does the Impala seem to be moving, even though you’re not controlling it? Wait, are we flying?” Sam swivels his head quickly to peer out through the passenger side window into the dark night flowing past.

“I can hear the engine noise, and her rumble feels the same to me. But the foot pedals don’t seem to do much of anything. Maybe this new lever here will…” Dean pulls a glowing blue lever on the dash near the steering wheel, and the Impala leaps forward into the night, engine roaring even louder.

Sam feels himself pressed back into the seat with more force. “Dean, we’re going a lot faster now.”

“Yeah, it’s cool!” Dean hollers, rolling down his window to feel the increased wind flow.

Sam’s hair whips around in the sudden breeze, covering his eyes; he’s forgotten what it was like to have those long bangs. “Maybe we oughta slow down ‘til we figure this out.”

“Alright, but it’s good to know we can go fast if we need to.” Dean pushes the lever back to its original position and the car’s engine slows, the roar dying back to the normal purring rumble.

“Where do you think we are, if this isn’t Heaven?” Sam asks.

Dean looks away, and Sam can tell immediately that he was right, - his brother knows, probably knows everything about what’s going on. “C’mon, Dean, let me in on the secret.”

Dean finally looks back at Sam, purses his lips because he knows he’s been found out. “We’re in a dream. Uh…my dream, that I …uh….wished for.”

“But how am I here and conscious with you in your dream? And what do you mean you wished for it?” Sam asks, completely confused because he’s never heard of anything like this.

“It was just this charm I found, when I was cataloguing downstairs in room file room eight. It sounded so harmless from the description, and I just…well, I needed it.”

Sam feels himself relent at his brother’s admission, because when does Dean ever actually admit to needing anything? He asks with as much gentleness as he can manage, “What did you need, Dean?”

“This. With you. Just you, like we used to be, before everything, even if it is just a dream.”

“But we always do this, what did you ask for?” Sam asks.

Dean stares straight ahead out the windshield at the uninterrupted star-crowded night sky. “My car, my brother by my side, and an endless road trip.”

“What was this, a nightmare wish fulfillment charm?” Sam asks with heartfelt sarcasm.

Dean looks over at him, flinching a bit, unable to hide the sting of Sam’s words. “No, it was a best-case-scenario kinda thing.”

Sam gestures around the car, including the crazy view and their young selves. “This? Is your idea of a best-case-scenario?”

Dean holds the back of his neck with one hand in his tell-tale protective grasp and mumbles, “Uh….yeah.”

Sam relaxes back into the seat a little, digesting this information, not sure how to react at first.  He thinks about how strange Dean’s been acting lately; so worried about him, always asking him how he feels, asking if he feels he’s really recovered from the Trials. It’s been weird, all the extra concern Dean’s been lavishing on him recently. So he decides to not give Dean a hard time about his wish, even though he’s well within his little-brother rights to tease him forever about this. “So where are we going in this wish of yours? I gotta know where I’m navigating us to.” Sam grins widely at Dean so he’ll know that he’s getting a pass.

Smiling with relief, Dean says, “Straight on ‘til morning, Sammy.”

Sam smiles even more at hearing his nickname said with such open fondness. “Won’t happen until you push another button I suppose.”
“I guess.”

They ride along in silence for a little bit, both just getting used to the feel of their younger bodies, and the sensation of the car moving, yet not really on a road. “So how long is this wish supposed to last?” Sam finally asks, unable to keep from voicing one of the million questions roaring through his head demanding answers.

“Until I’m done,” Dean answers.

“Done with what?”

Dean takes a big breath in, holding it for a bit, as if he’s settling himself down before he can speak. “Done with needing it.”

Sam’s eyes widen a little at the answer. “Well, okay then.”

They are quiet for another long while, just sitting together as the car rolls through the night. With no wheels hitting pavement, it sounds a little different than they’re used to. Sam looks out the passenger window and sees nothing, just some indistinct dark landscape and the stars above.

“Hey, can you turn it back to what we first saw, with the stars up close and everything?”

“Yeah, uh, I think it’s this one.” Dean pushes the button on the upper left side of the glowing panel at his side. The sky outside blazes with light from the stars that now seem close enough to pluck out of the inky darkness. They round a curve in the road, passing a small hill, and the moon looms large on the horizon.

Sam gasps at the sight, recognizing the scene from their short time in Heaven, “Dean, this is what I saw when I first woke up in Heaven. God, it’s just as beautiful as I remember.”

Dean grins at the wonder in Sam’s voice, looking happy that he’s been able to put it there for once. “I didn’t know you saw this too.”

“Yeah, it was right after we lit those fireworks, remember when we burnt that field down?” Sam says.

Dean looks over at Sam and examines him closely, like he’s trying to see if Sam’s kidding. “Wait, you saw that too? But I thought you started out in brace-face’s Thanksgiving.”

“No, that was my second memory. The fireworks was definitely first. You mean, you saw it too?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, I did, it was the first thing I saw, except for Baby.”

“Figures she’d come first,” Sam says, letting the jealousy he always feels about his brother’s feelings for their car color his words for once.

“Naw, she’s just where I came to is all, then I was getting the fireworks outta the trunk with you. Little you. You were such a squirt back then,” Dean says.

“So were you, just swimmin’ in Dad’s leather jacket. Man, I loved that night, it was the best night of my life.”

“Me too. Guess that’s why we both started there,” Dean says, sounding happy at the revelation that Sam started there too.

“Yeah, even Zachariah didn’t have the power to mess with that,” Sam adds.

“You think he screwed with the way we saw Heaven?” Dean asks.

“Sure, I mean he totally did at the end, so why not the other parts too? The only places he couldn’t touch us was where we started, in the fireworks memory, in Ash’s roadhouse, and there in the garden with Joshua. I think he was powerful enough to mess around with what we saw, absolutely, and it got him what he wanted at the time.”

“What did he want?” Dean asks.

Sam looks at him closely, - surely he hasn’t really forgotten, it hasn’t been that long, has it? “Us broken apart, you willing to say yes.”

Dean goes silent at the memory of that awful time when they almost were torn apart for good. He clears his throat and says in a halting voice, “I remember, that night, when I left. How I dreaded what was going to happen to you, and then you came for me, when I was boxing up my leather jacket to mail to Bobby’s with that stupid letter.”

After a long pause where he remembers that night in excruciating detail, Sam answers, “You know, I read that letter you wrote. The one you put in with the stuff you were mailing. And I get it, I do, Dean, I understand why you made that choice. Sorry that I couldn’t let you.”

Dean’s quiet for a while, just holding onto the steering wheel that doesn’t seem to be doing much, looking out the windshield at the stars moving by. “I’m sorry, Sammy. That I just left you like that. But I had to.”

“Yeah, I know you did, Dean. You came through in the end though, when it counted.”

“Heh, yeah, guess so,” Dean says quietly, shrugging his shoulders, leaving them up high near his ears as if he’s protecting himself from what Sam will say.

“You guess so? I never doubted you’d do the right thing, not for a second,” Sam insists, putting a hand on one of Dean’s shoulders and pressing it back down to where it should be.

Dean bites his lip as if he’s trying to stop himself from talking. “Yeah, you were the only one.”

“I suppose I was,” Sam answers, remembering how Bobby and Cas had written Dean off so easily.

Dean finally looks over at Sam, meeting his eyes directly. “You know, crazy as it sounds, that’s all that mattered to me at that point. That you still believed in me.”

Sam smiles at the blatant admission from his brother, the words ringing true to his ears. He adds it to the small pile of Dean-related treasures he’s kept all these years. Sam sits back in the passenger seat and looks out at the enormous stars lighting up the purpling night and thinks about how he’s always had that faith in Dean; delusions of a younger brother perhaps, but Dean’s always been worthy of it. ”This is what you really wished for, isn’t it?” Sam asks.

“What?” Dean answers with a question, obviously hoping to avoid his brother’s conclusion.

Sam smiles his half-smile, the one that tells Dean he’s figured him out. Again. “Us. Talking about this kind of stuff that we never talk about.”

“So what if it was? Like I said…” Dean says defensively.

Sam interrupts him because he knows exactly what Dean’s going to say. Of course he does. “Yeah, you needed it, I got it. Well, me too, pretty much always. Might as well give up on the no-chick-flick-moments B.S., huh? ‘Cause I’m not buyin’ it right now.”

“So, what else ya got?” Dean asks, after he lets loose a relieved-sounding sigh.

“It’s your dream, Dean. Isn’t that kinda up to you?”

“Huh, I guess so. Can I ask you something?” Dean asks.

“Yeah, of course,” Sam answers.

“I’ve been wondering, uh…if you forgive me. For making you stop the third Trial.”

Sam takes a deep breath and pulls Dean into an intense hug, heedless of removing Dean from controlling the now useless steering wheel.

Finally Sam answers, whispering into the side of Dean’s neck, “Of course I do. I would have done the same thing.”

Dean pulls himself back a bit so he can look in Sam’s eyes. “Really?”

“Dean, if you really don’t know the answer to that, we have more problems than I thought.” Sam smiles at him a little sadly.

“No, stop it. Yes, I knew that. I just wanted to…”

“Hear me say it?” Sam interrupts. “Yes, Dean, yes, I would have made you stop from killing yourself in the third Trial. Nothing is worth losing you again. Nothing.”

Dean looks into Sam’s eyes for a long moment, he finally accepts Sam’s words. “Okay.”

“What else, Dean?” Sam asks, his arms still around Dean’s shoulders, just making a loose circle that contains them and the truths they both seem to need to share and confirm.

“You know that light at the end of the tunnel thing you were talkin’ about? You still see that for, uh, both of us?” Dean asks.

“Yeah, I do. Absolutely. Especially now that I’m feeling better,” Sam answers, hands tightening on Dean, like he needs to hold them still until the words sink in.

“About that, your whole feelin’ better thing. I need to tell you something about why you’re feeling so good.”

“It’s not just from your stellar bedside manner and skillful nursing?” Sam jokes.

“Shut up, wise-guy. I’m serious. After we stopped the Trial and left the church, I had to get help for you, - you were gonna die, and there wasn’t anything else left I could do,” Dean says in a rush, then looks down at his lap, head bowed under the weight of what he can’t say.

Sam rubs Dean’s back encouragingly. “Just say it Dean.”

“I’m worried you’re gonna hate me,” Dean admits.

“I won’t, I promise. I couldn’t. I believe you made the right choice, whatever it was. I want that light at the end of the tunnel. You and me right?” Sam braces himself for whatever Dean’s about to finally tell him.

“The doctors said there wasn’t anything they could do, and you were in a coma, laying there dying. So, I uh… I prayed for help, and angels came. Some of them that showed up were in a fighting mood, but one of them, Ezekiel, saved us. He got hurt though. He offered to heal you, but…” Dean breaks away from Sam’s arms and puts his face in his hands, draping himself over the steering wheel.

Sam puts one hand on Dean’s constricted upper back, rubs it in a small circle, with just a little pressure. “Hey, c’mon, tell me.”

“He took me into your mind, Sam, and you were talking to Death about going with him as long as it was a permanent thing, something that no one could bring you back from.”

“I’d never choose that if I could stay with you. Never,” Sam interrupts, scooting over to be closer to Dean.

Dean finally looks up, catching Sam’s eyes like they’re a life preserver offering sudden salvation. “That was when I told you that there wasn’t a me without you. And you gave your permission for him, Ezekiel, to fix you.”

“That doesn’t sound like such a big deal,” Sam says, shrugging a little at the idea; no big deal, they’ve dealt with angels for a while now.

Dean interrupts Sam’s denial before it goes any further. “From the inside out.”

“Hold on. What? You mean the angel was inside of me?” Sam says, wonder and fear in his voice in equal measures.

Dean nods slowly. “Yeah. Still is, in fact. He brought Cas and Charlie back, both of them were killed.”

“Wait, what? Killed? When?” Sam asks, taking his hand away from Dean’s back and moving back over to his side of the

“When we saw each of them; the reaper killed Cas, and that Oz witch killed Charlie, she dove in front of the spell that almost got me. Zeke says it weakened him bringin’ them back, so he needs to stay in you a little longer.”

“So there’s an angel in me. Again.” Sam says with no inflection in his voice at all, just flat, monotone.

Dean sighs, because this is where the real issue is for Sam, he’s known it would be, all this time. “Yeah.”

“And there wasn’t anything else, no other option?” Sam asks, obviously wanting reassurance, but also trying to figure out ‘the why’ of the situation, just like anything else in his crazy life.

Dean turns to look at him, just his brother, the only person who could ever understand this. He has to touch him while he’s saying this, he can’t stop himself from reaching out, just one hand lightly squeezing Sam’s bicep. “No, Sam, there really wasn’t, - I swear I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. And he warned me not to tell you. He was sure you’d eject him, and that would’ve killed you on the spot.”

Sam can’t help himself leaning into Dean a little, he needs the physical connection as well, to get through this. “So why tell me now?”

Dean presses a little harder into Sam, looking him straight in the eyes. “’Cause I think you’re okay enough, and I want just you back.”

“Has he done other stuff too? Besides just the saving Charlie and Cas thing?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, he took out all those demons when we were fighting Abaddon. And he helped with that crazy cannibal chef.”

Sam chews on that information for a little while, mind spinning on high speed to process it all, cataloging all the strangeness of the time since the third Trial. “That’s why I’ve been losing time and why you’ve been so damn weird.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry,” Dean says.

Sam clenches his fists tightly, trying to hold in a wave of sudden, overwhelming anger. “You lied to me again, Dean. After everything, after what you said to me in that church, you lied to me again.”

Dean squeezes Sam’s arm tightly. “I did. And I’d do it again if I had to. Because of what I told you, Sammy, I can’t do this without you.”                                     

Sam searches Dean’s face, recalling the way he’d looked in the old church, desperate hope the only thing holding him together. Now he looks worse, wrecked after a month of hiding this awful truth. “The guilt was getting to you, wasn’t it?” Sam asks.

Dean lets go of Sam’s arm finally, putting his hand back on the steering wheel. “Yeah. I didn’t want to do it, but like I said, I had no other choice. But having to lie to you all this time was even worse in a way.”

Sam turns away, looking out the windows at the stars moving by, letting a few tears fall, letting the anger flow through him, banking it up into another box to be dealt with later. “I’m not happy about this, I’m fucking furious about it, but you know that. And it’ll take me a long time to forgive you all the way,” Sam says towards the window in a voice that shakes with all the feelings he’s trying to control. He takes a deep breath and turns to look at his brother sitting there, devastated, hopeless. “But I get it. I do. And I would have done the same thing, Dean. You know that, right?”

“I was hoping that was how you’d look at it. And yeah, I do know that, Sammy, I really do.” Dean pulls him into his arms, enveloping him in that safe tight circle again. Their lips finally meet, and then part allowing it all to deepen between them, like it hasn’t in a long, long time. They kiss each other breathless, blissfully unaware of the car moving on without anyone controlling it.

Finally they break apart a little, but neither letting go too much, and Sam asks, “So, is that why you haven’t been…you know?”

“Yeah, it’s just, uh, kinda weird, knowing he’s in there watching us,” Dean admits.

“But it’s just us here, in your dream?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. That’s why I risked telling you in here.”

“Well, we shouldn’t waste any time then, in case someone wakes you up,” Sam says slowly, waggling his eyebrows in a ridiculous come-hither face.

Dean laughs. “Oh really?”

Instead of answering, Sam pulls Dean in close, and brings their lips back together, enveloping them both into the swirl of passion and need that they always have waiting there between them. Sam kisses Dean with all the fury at being lied to, as well as all the thankfulness that Dean made such a hard choice to save him. To save them. Too soon they have to pause, both panting, trying to catch their breath.
Sam places both of his huge, warm hands on the sides of Dean’s face and looks at him for a long moment. He soaks in the love he sees there in Dean’s eyes, the fear and pain of the last month lurking behind it all. Sam realizes that Dean’s had no one to talk to about all this, he’s kept it all inside himself. He’s suddenly overwhelmed with how much has come between them. “Dean, I’ve missed you so much.”

“Yeah, me too, Sammy.”

“Time for some life-affirming, we survived, hey it’s finally just me in here sex?” Sam asks with a hopeful laugh.

“Now you’re talkin’.” Dean kisses him again, deepening it more this time, not holding himself back now that he has nothing to hide.

“Too bad you dreamed us in the Impala, it’d be nice to have a little more room.”

Dean laughs and pushes one of the few remaining buttons on the control box he hasn’t monkeyed with yet. “Look in the back.”

Sam turns to look over Dean’s head at the backseat and bursts out laughing. “Oh my god. This really is your dream.”

“Yep, just like I always wished we had back there.”

Sam kisses the side of his face and whispers in Dean’s ear, “Meet you in the back.” He then pulls himself over the back of the front seat, landing square in the middle of the bed that has replaced the back seat. “Memory foam? Really, Dean?”

Dean laughs, leaning over the back of the seat. “Hey, nothin’ but the best for us in my dream.”

Sam joins in Dean’s laughter, as he starts to remove his clothes.  “Hey, you think I’m gonna remember all this when we wake up?”

“Don’t know. I sure as hell hope so.”

“This just a trial run then, in a way?” Sam asks.

Dean pauses up on the back of the seat. “I guess. I’m just worried that you’re gonna leave when I tell you. Or die.”

“Oh, that’s all,” Sam says with a snort. Then his face goes serious. “Dean, I’m not going anywhere, ever. If you’re straight with me like this out there in the real world, I swear I’ll react the same way.”

Dean doesn’t say anything, just looks at Sam with eyes full of hope and thankfulness. He nods once, confirming that he’s accepting Sam’s words.  He hoists himself over the backseat and arranges himself on top of Sam. Their legs slot together, aligning their bodies into the familiar position. Dean grins down at Sam. “See, not my worst-case scenario if I’m getting some in the back of my baby.”

And that’s when Dean’s phone goes off on his nightstand, waking him up from his charmed sleep. And he can’t bring himself to answer it, he just lies there looking at the ceiling of his lonely room, hoping for all he’s worth that his brother will wake up down the hall with some memory of their conversation. But if that doesn’t happen, he thinks there might be another one of those charms in the storage box. And this time he’ll put his phone on silent, so that they can at least get to the good part.

~FIN~