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People -reasons Sam Winchester while sneaking a peak at his 41 years old brother, who’s currently sitting cross legged on a couch in front of the tv and watching Scooby Doo along with his 2 years old, fully grown to his late teens kid- never take Dean for a subtle person… because come on, he’s Dean Winchester: he’s the kind of guy who either goes big or doesn’t go at all, and he seems everything but subtle.
Sam, though, knows better: the younger Winchester knows his brother like the back of his hands, and he knows from personal experience that Dean can be subtle, if he wants.
That’s why Sam is the only one who can always tell when his brother is going through something important and doesn’t want anyone to know: people always assume there’s only so much to Dean as it shows, and they always think they know what’s in his head by just looking at him, but Sam knows that what’s on the surface is mostly just a façade, and that if you want to know anything at all about Dean, that isn’t where you should be looking.
Dean’s big acts, Dean’s apparent openness… those are just walls Dean has carefully built around himself through the years. That was originally just Dean trying to be whatever dad expected him to be, and now it’s just Dean trying to be whatever people in general expect him to be.
Sam knows where to look: Dean’s only himself where and when he thinks no one’s watching, and he’s probably the best liar Sam has ever met… but they’ve grown up together, and Sam knows his brother’s tells better than he knows his own.
He knows that Dean genuinely likes Taylor Swift, for example: no matter how much Dean denies it, Sam can see him lightly drumming his fingers on the steering wheel every time one of her songs comes up on the radio.
And he knows Dean doesn’t mind vegan bacon all that much, even though to be fair, there probably isn’t something even just remotely edible that Dean wouldn’t eat in the whole universe.
Which is kind of heartbreaking, if you think about it, but Sam mostly tries not to.
Anyways, the point is that he knows things about his brother he’s fairly sure nobody else (or not many else anyways) know, and most of all, that he knows where to look to know things that no one else is ever going to know.
That’s why he wasn’t really surprised at all, when on June 27th 2020 he got out of his room at about 3 am to go get a glass of water and he stumbled upon Dean snuggled into Cas’s side on one of the bunker lounge couches, apparently sound asleep but with tears still shining like small rivers on his cheeks.
Cas was awake, because he never sleeps, but he didn’t look there. Not really. He was just staring at the void, his fingers stuck into Dean’s hair, absently but at the same time carefully rubbing at his scalp.
There were tears tracks on his face, too.
Then Castiel blinked, as if waking up from a trance, and his gaze tuned on Sam while a quizzical expression started drawing itself on his features.
Sam knows Cas probably expected him to react. To say something. To look at least a bit shocked at seeing his brother being so intimate with a guy (if you wanted to call Cas a guy, which he technically wasn’t, but still).
Well, with anyone, really.
But Sam wasn’t surprised. He had feelings about it (still has them), sure, but surprise wasn’t (and still isn’t) one of those.
Because he always keeps an eye on his brother, and he hasn’t failed to notice how his eyes always find Cas when he thinks no one is watching. And he’s noticed the pet names, and how Dean always takes a couple of seconds to check if Cas is okay during a hunt, or even just how nothing seems to shake Dean as bad as fighting with Cas.
So, really: Sam wasn’t (and still isn’t) surprised.
He hadn’t even been surprised in 1997, when he saw his brother kiss a boy behind the school for the first time in one of the uncountable small towns their father had left them in while he was on a hunt, back when Dean was 18 years old and he was around 14, so he wasn’t really going to be surprised now, was he?
Back in June, under Cas’s expectant gaze, he’d just shrugged and hadn’t said a word… and he still hasn’t said a word. He isn’t going to at least until Dean says something about it.
He isn’t going to assume anything, either: he’s known for years that Dean has caught the feelings for Cas, but he’s also known for years that Dean doesn’t know he’s caught the feelings for Cas, and he also knows that Dean isn’t really ok with the whole kissing guys deal: the simple fact that he’s never said anything about being… well, Sam assumes he’s bisexual, or something, because Dean definitely likes girls too. The simple fact that he’s never said anything about that says a lot by itself.
Sam blames it on their father, mostly. And marginally on their mother. Not that Mary has ever showed any of John’s raging homophobia, but Sam suspects that the moment they had their mother back, something inside of Dean’s head decided it wasn’t worth it to risk losing her again, so despite years of slowly trying to separate who he really is from who their father thought he was, he ended up trying to be who their mother expected him to be so that she wouldn’t leave him again.
Also, Dean’s a fucking idiot, really. Sam knows his brother is a lot smarter than he looks, but emotionally wise? Dumb as a rock, honest to God.
So, Sam isn’t going to assume anything, because the sky forbid his brother had the stones to face his feelings and try to be happy, for once.
In June, with things being the way they were, there hadn’t really been much else to do but wait: Mary and John were gone now, and Dean had defeated God, so Sam was confident he could defeat internalized homophobia too.
Or at least he had hoped so.
He’d hoped Dean knew it was okay, and he’d hoped Dean knew he was on his side, always.
He had wished he could just tell him, but he really hadn’t wanted his brother to know he knew.
Dean deserved to come out on his own terms.
So, Sam had decided to wait: he had already waited twenty something years, waiting another bit wasn’t going to kill him, was it?
Sam waited, and now it’s December 1st in the year of the Lord (please see the irony) 2020, and Dean kind of just spilled the tea. Well, the coffee, actually. And more literally than figuratively, but still.
Sam walked into the kitchen at 11 in the morning (about ten minutes ago) to find Dean leaning against the counter with a cup of coffee in his hand and his head resting on Cas’s, whose head was resting on Dean’s shoulder in return.
It didn’t look like they had noticed Sam, so he took his sweet time to look at them.
Cas was (and is, still) wearing his usual trench coat and a blue tie that was (and still is) tied wrong and loose around his neck. Dean was in his ugly as hell burger pjs and a night robe, and they weren’t exactly holding hands, but their fingers were definitely touching, and Castiel was muttering something under his breath that sounded nothing like English and a bit like he was singing, and it looked… weird.
Dean looked weird, Sam thought. More at ease than he had seen him in a long time. The whole scene made Sam feel bad for intruding and for a hot second he considered turning his ass around and going back to his room undetected, but then he realized how bad he needed a coffee, and said screw it.
He cleared his voice, the spell broke and Dean flinched so bad half of his dose of caffeine ended up on his pjs.
-Son of a… - he started, but then he stopped, biting his lip.
Jack’s swear jar was apparently working.
Sam waited for him to move away from Cas and say it wasn’t what it looked like so he could get to the coffee maker and make himself coffee… but Dean didn’t. He just closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and then opened his eyes again, as if bracing himself for something.
Sam wondered if he should have said something, crack a joke or something, but then he decided against it. The fact that Dean wasn’t denying it was a step forward already, and Sam is perfectly ok with baby steps.
-You guys are in front of the coffee maker. – he said instead.
Dean turned to look behind them, nodded, then got up.
-Yeah, sorry. – he looked down to himself and to the coffee on his pajamas -I’m gonna go change. –
And there he is, not saying anything once again. Sam thought.
Now, he’s sitting at the kitchen table with a steaming cup of coffee, and if he just strains his neck a bit, he can peep out of the door at his brother watching cartoons with Jack in the other room. But he’s watched his brother enough, in the last few months.
He turns to Cas, who’s still leaning on the counter, and offers him a smile.
Castiel doesn’t smile back, but Sam doesn’t really need him to to know he’s being understood.
-Is he ever going to tell me? – he asks, nodding his head toward the door.
Cas glances at Dean in the other room, and now he does smile. It’s a very small smile, barely a twitch of his lips, but Sam has known him for more than a decade, and he knows a smile when he sees one.
-It’s not that he doesn’t trust you with it. – Cas answers quietly -It’s not about you. I just don’t think he trusts himself with it enough to tell anyone. –
Sam sighs. Dean is heartbreaking sometimes, really: scared to be happy because if he lets himself be happy, he thinks someone (probably himself) will take it away from him.
-Do you think he’s going to be okay? – Sam enquires.
Cas keeps stealing side glances of the door.
-Yes. – he states, after considering it for a while -He just needs time. –
Sam smiles. They fought God and won, they stopped the world from ending countless times, and they’ve literally been through hell, but now they’re free. The time for fighting’s over: Dean has all the time in the world, and maybe, one day, he’s going to say something.
Sam has been waiting for his brother to come out for twenty-three years. He can give him some more time, can’t he?