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When the Jeep pulled up in front of Dean’s house, Dean got the smirking out of the way. In front of his brother, he would be properly sympathetic, saying all the right things about how sorry he was that Sam was hurting and how much he wished things had gone differently. He’d leave out the part about wishing that Ruby had never gotten her hooks in his little brother and let Sam believe that he wished they’d been happy together instead.
At first, Sam had tried to argue that Dean didn’t know Ruby. That line of argument got shut down quickly when Dean pointed out that neither did Sam. Sam had only met Ruby six months ago. That was hardly a good basis for knowing each other long enough for marriage. Dean hardly claimed to be an expert on the subject, but there were things he’d been told by his dad that you needed to know before you married someone. What their relationship with their parents was like. If there wasn’t a relationship with their parents, why not? Did they have a plan to prevent that from happening between them and their kids? What was it like trying to maintain a relationship through the Christmas season? Valentine’s Day? A summer vacation? You couldn’t do that in six months. Valentine’s Day really shouldn’t count for Sam and Ruby either, that’s how they met. Marrying in August was way too damn soon.
Dean had refused to let Ruby completely cut Dean out of her and Sam’s lives, but she’d tried. Dean had tried to talk to Sam a couple times about how Ruby was pulling him away from his hobbies, his friends, his life. Sam wouldn’t listen.
What was taking so long, anyway? Dean looked out the doorway and saw Sam still behind the wheel of the Jeep, not having made any apparent effort to get out and start unloading luggage or head for the door. Dean went out and tapped on the window. Sam got out of the Jeep, and Dean had to shake his head. As much crap as he always gave his brother about the shaggy hair, it suited him. Right now, it was cut in some boy-band-y short style that didn’t suit him at all. Objectively, it was fine, but it wasn’t Sam. “Hey, dude, what are you sitting out here for? Let’s get your stuff inside so you can get a beer and relax.”
“You don’t know why I’m a little hesitant to face you? I know I deserve it, but still, ‘I told you so’ is never easy to hear.” Sam opened the back to reveal his stuff. There wasn’t nearly as much as Dean had expected. Duffle with some clothes, a couple boxes that were labeled books…
“Dude. Where’s the yarn and your needles and stuff?” There was no way the judge made Sam leave behind his knitting supplies, not when that was one of Sam’s sources of income. He could see Sam mailing his clothes sooner than mailing his yarn, if it was a matter of space in the Jeep – which it shouldn’t be, there was plenty of that left. The only other explanation he could come up with sucked.
From the way Sam’s head was hanging, though, it had to be that. Sam confirmed it. “Ruby gave it all away. That was… well, okay, the final straw was when she cut up a blanket I’d just finished that the client was going to pay me a thousand dollars for, stole the client’s phone number, and called to tell him to forget it, this was just her petty revenge for me presenting her with divorce papers the next day.”
“Wait, you’re the one who served her? Not the other way around?” Dean held up a hand. “High five, dude. Sucks that that’s what it took, but I’m proud of you.”
Sam slapped Dean’s hand and tossed the duffle on his shoulder. “I wish you’d been there to see the look on her face. Best part – the judge heard that little story and decided that since she was going to interfere with my income, she clearly didn’t want alimony. Since there’s no kids and the bank accounts are separated now, I’m done. I don’t owe her another penny, she doesn’t owe me anything, it’s over.” He rolled his eyes and grabbed one of the boxes of books. “I’m still expecting her to make contact in a couple months to tell me she’s pregnant and the kid is mine, but unless a paternity test backs it up, I’m not falling for it.”
“Good.” Dean could just imagine that conversation. There might be a tiny chance, but really, Dean hoped not. Sam with a kid would be awesome. The kid deserved a better mother than Ruby. He grabbed the other box of books and slammed the door. “Let’s go get that beer, huh?”
Three beers and a thousand dollars spent on ordering replacement yarn and supplies later, Sam was finally starting to relax. Dean reached out and nudged him gently with a foot. “You really thought I’d start the I told you so right away, dude? I mean, I did tell you so, but that’s not what you needed to hear when you pulled up.”
“You’re my big brother.” Sam downed the last of his beer and flopped dramatically into a chair. “Isn’t that what big brothers do? They act ridiculous and superior and rub salt in the wounds?”
“No, that’s not what big brothers do. Big brothers get their little brothers beer and a place to stay and recover.” After a moment’s hesitation, Dean added grudgingly, “Then we act ridiculous and superior and rub salt in the healing wound. For your own good, you know? So you learn something.”
“Whatever. I know you hated Ruby, and now that I’m actually seeing her for what she is instead of what she had me convinced she was, I hate her too. I should’ve listened to you, listened to the warning bells. I didn’t.”
“Yeah, why not? Normally you’re the cautious one, the one who looks for the hidden secrets and catches. What was it about Ruby that made you forget all that?”
“Exactly!” Dean stared at Sam, willing him to explain without prompting. “She made me forget. I didn’t need to remember that I’m a freak, that I’m a horrible person for wanting things I can’t have, that I’m not clean. None of that mattered. She knew I’d never love her the way a husband should love a wife and didn’t give a shit.”
Dean stared at Sam, mouth hanging open. His first thought was that Sam was feeling unclean because he was gay, but that didn’t make any sense. Sam had never been any kind of homophobic or transphobic or acephobic or anything else that could explain anything at all about this. On the other hand, Dean could not come up with a second thought. “Okay, Sammy, gonna need you to explain that one, because only thing I can come up with is you hating yourself for being gay. Like to think I’d know that about my little brother, but if you’re hating yourself over it, I can see why you wouldn’t say anything.”
“It’s not that I like dudes. It’s which dude in particular I like.” Sam hauled himself to his feet and grabbed another beer.
Once again, Dean tried to work through this on his own. A very quiet voice in the back of his head brought up some of the whispers from ex-girlfriends, their dad’s drunken ramblings. How Sam and Dean’s closeness was unnatural, creepy, wrong. He’d thought he’d kept that away from Sam, but maybe, either Sam had heard enough to internalize it and hate himself for it, or there was more truth to it than Dean had ever thought. “You talking about me?”
“What?” Sam turned and stared at Dean, and the complicated mixture of fear, hope, hate, love, and more on his face convinced Dean that he was right. “Dean, c’mon, man, you’re my brother…”
“Which is why it makes sense for you to be self-loathing over wanting me. It’s weird, it’s way out of the normal, it’s wrong according to almost everyone. Thing is, Sammy…” Dean stood up and walked over to Sam, hoping this worked. If not, well… it was gonna suck for both of them. “I don’t give a shit. You want me? I’m right here. Come and take me.”
Sam snorted. “That cannot have come out the way you meant it to.”
“Yeah, that might’ve come out a little more… but you know what I meant, dude. You’re not alone in this, and for what it’s worth, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Can see why others might, but I don’t give a shit, and it doesn’t make you a freak or unclean or whatever else you’ve thought about yourself.” Dean took another step forward, wrapping his arms around his brother. “So? You gonna make me look like a total idiot here, or let yourself be happy and get what you want?”
Sam’s arms came up around Dean. “Should probably do this when we don’t have a bowling lane worth of beer bottles around, but fuck it. You let me off the hook on this tonight, I’m not sure I’d have the balls to bring it up tomorrow, and you might let it go, too. So… yeah. Normally I’d argue that it’s a bad idea to get into something so soon after my divorce, but given the circumstances…”
“You’re absolutely right. On all counts. That’s said now, it’s reciprocated, we can talk about it tomorrow without fear, and who cares about the divorce when even you are doing the ding dong the bitch is dead dance?”