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It’s January 24th 2021. And Dean Winchester would be turning 42 today.
He would get up late, just because he can; Miracle would run to him, more festive than usual, somehow sensing this isn’t just another day.
Dean would take a minute to think about it, just as it hits what day it is, how old he is turning, older than he’d ever figured he’d turn.
He would drag his sleepy self to the kitchen and Sam - ever the sentimental asshole - would have pie for him, waiting next to a pot of coffee.
He’d go to the war room, thank Sam for the breakfast and ruffle the kid’s hair just to annoy him.
Sam would wish him happy birthday, watch him eat the dessert like it was the most important thing in the world and for once he would actually join in.
Because it is a special day, and one slice of the damn pie would absolutely be worth the smirk Dean would give him.
Jody would call; Claire, Alex; Garth and his family; Bobby and all the other Apocalypse World survivors; Charlie and her girl, and everyone else he cares about. Every member of that family he built for himself.
Eileen would be on her way back from a hunt, sad she’s missing Dean's birthday but ready to celebrate one day late.
Sam would take it all in, the casual conversations with the people they love and all the birthday wishes - more than Dean has allowed himself to receive in years - on the first birthday he spends not covered in blood in who even knows how long.
And if when Dean gets up to get some more coffee, Sam follows him and hugs him - just because he can , just because he’s there, just because it hits him at full force that his big brother is actually getting older and that he will continue to do so, by his side indefinitely, because no one is out to get him anymore; if he clings to him like a kid, chokes back a sob because he fully, truly realizes that Dean’s somehow made it, that he has him, that despite all the loss and heartbreak in his life his jerk of a big brother has come out on the other side and is eating pie with him on the most normal birthday morning ever.
If he did all that, then Dean would hug him back just as tight. Because the stupid kid is a mess in his arms, looking all of five years old and engulfing him in the gigantic frame that really doesn’t match his behavior.
And then it would hit him too, that this is it. Pie on birthdays and friends’ calls and run of the mill hunts he could handle with his eyes closed - but most of all, his little brother with him, safe, free. Hugging him; reminding him to celebrate his birthday like it really matters.
After all he’s been through, he would be happy and healthy and goddamnit that would be the biggest “fuck you” to Chuck and his games anyone could have come up with.
A ride in Baby; an Indiana Jones marathon and a late night drink with a prayer Dean would hope gets to Cas someway, somehow - “You changed me too, man.”
Sam would fall asleep in Dean’s bed after the TV binge, unconsciously grabbing his arm and making it impossible for Dean to get up - not that he’d want to.
He's earned that, to hear his little brother breathe through the night, a little drunk and clingy because of it.
And if that made him sentimental, then given his newfound oldman status - he would be entitled.
__SPN__
It doesn’t go that way, though. Dean is not celebrating his 42nd birthday, and Sam’s tears aren’t happy ones.
Sam’s not hugging him, he’s squeezing that worn out flannel Dean refused to throw out and that he hated, because the smell of him, of his big brother, of home never faded and that’s about as close as he can get to ever holding Dean again.
He’s not reverting back to five years old, because he doesn’t have that luxury anymore; because Dean died and he had to lose that privilege of being a little brother, had to give up on the safe space and the pretense his big brother could defeat any monster and protect him from everything.
He had to leave Sammy behind, drop the nickname and all it represented because no one is there to call him that anymore.
He does eat pie, and he hates it and loves it and he never thought a grown man could cry this much, but it feels like he’s trying to break some kind record today.
He eats pie and he remembers, and both wishes he could just forget and dreads the day he might.
Calls come; from Jody; Claire, Alex; Garth and his family; Bobby and all the other Apocalypse World survivors; Charlie and her girl, and everyone they cared about. Every member of that family they built for themselves.
Sam answers the first one and hangs up right away, the others go to voicemail. He knows they have the best intentions, that they care about him and want to make sure he’s okay.
But he’s not. Hasn’t been in a while, probably won’t ever really be.
He hasn’t heard from Eileen in a couple of weeks. Maybe one day he’ll be ready, but right now he has nothing to give her; she’ll probably call tomorrow, and maybe he’ll even answer. Everything gets just a little bit easier when he sees her face.
He tries to to take the Impala for a ride, it’s what Dean would do if he were here, and she deserves some love on this day, too - but he gets about halfway through the garage before the thought of getting into the driver seat knocks the air right out of his lungs and he runs back inside.
He doesn’t watch Indiana Jones, it’s not worth it without Dean’s absurd comments and their ridiculous banter, anyway.
He turns on his big brother’s music instead and listens to the same records he’s listened to for his whole life, and he could swear he almost hears Dean humming along to Metallica.
It hurts and heals and he wishes he could just skip the “living” and “fighting” part and go straight to seeing Dean again.
He hates himself for thinking it, hates Dean for making him promise not to, and hates that he did.
He sleeps in Dean’s bed, but that’s not new. He’s been doing that for months, a torture he can’t help but inflict on himself.
Miracle is there too, vigilant at the bed’s feet, somehow able to sense when Dean’s little brother’s having a nightmare, always ready to wake him up just in time.
Sometimes it doesn’t work.
Sometimes it’s not a bad dream Sam’s having, but when he wakes up it hurts all the same.
It's just before midnight when he falls asleep.
Or maybe he passes out. Half a bottle of whiskey and a day worth of tears make it hard to tell.
Kansas keeps playing through the night, as he tosses and turns and the poor dog can do very little against the pain of missing the other half of one’s soul.
Because Sam outlived his brother, and this time it’s final. It's for ever.
He can pinpoint the exact moment life went from being too short, to being exhaustingly too long and he misses Dean, in the most primal, simple way.
It’s not complicated, there’s not mixed feelings. Dean was his big brother and he hasn't been in over two months and Sam misses him like air in his lungs.
And maybe one day he’ll be better; maybe one day Dean’s birthday will be more about remembering the good days than about wishing he had more.
Maybe one day, the agony will be accompanied by some sort of forced acceptance and Sam will be able to breathe without feeling like that breath should be Dean’s.
Not today. Not yet.
If you ask the sobbing figure on the bed, he’ll tell you never. He’ll tell you that that hole in his chest won’t ever repair itself and that he’s not sure he ever wants it too.
So for now he sleeps, and in his dreams he buys Dean pie and leaves him a pot of coffee; Dean ruffles his hair and Sam hugs him tight and clings to him like a kid, just because he’s there, just because he can.
Just because he knows in the morning he'll wake up and won't be able to.