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Sam had said his final goodbye to Dean many times. Sometimes it was said with an expectation that they wouldn’t see each other again. Sometimes it was with the knowledge that even if they did, it wouldn’t be for a very long time. And sometimes it was after the fact—Dean disappearing in an explosion of Leviathan guts and Sam only being able to say goodbye to a memory in the moments before he tried to drive the Impala off a bridge and hit a dog instead.
Saying goodbye to Dean that last time, in the barn, was easier in some ways than the others. Sam wouldn’t go so far as to say that it was bearable, even though technically, it was, as he had borne it, trying to make Dean’s last seconds okay, trying to be good for Dean one more time. But it felt final in a way the other times hadn’t. Even when he’d hugged Dean goodbye in the graveyard in Lawrence when he had headed off to face Amara alone and wasn’t supposed to be coming back, Sam hadn’t really believed that was the last time he would see his brother.
In the barn, as he tried to see through the tears that wouldn’t quit to take care of the boys they’d saved, take care of Dean’s body, Sam knew he would see him again. But he also knew that it might not be for a very long time.
Though even then, Sam’s logical brain told him it probably wouldn’t be longer than the century plus he’d spent apart from Dean in the cage. It was so long ago now, in any way you wanted to measure the passage of time, that he’d jumped into the cage with Lucifer inside of him. He barely remembered those years now, those dark, cold years, where the only thing Sam could count on for certain was that he’d done the right thing. It had been a long time to go without Dean. He’d been starved for him. But after he’d been rescued by Death of all things and there Dean was, whole and alive and there—those years in the cage eventually faded away.
Not so the years after the barn. Sam had lost a lot of people. Almost everyone. But nearly every time he’d had Dean to get him through it.
It was hard to keep going when the person you lived for was already dead.
The only thing that stopped him from pulling another bridge attempt was Miracle. And Jody. And the knowledge that Dean was safe. He didn’t know exactly what it was like. Heaven. But he knew that Jack wouldn’t let Dean suffer. Not after what they’d all gone through. He still prayed sometimes, mostly thanking Jack for looking out for Dean. And he waited.
He’d once heard someone say, “the days are long but the years are short.” Well, that was bullshit. Every day without Dean was a year, but every year was an eternity. Even after little Dean came along, a miracle in and of himself, the years still stretched out ahead of Sam, full of missing and longing and waiting and regret and the sense that with every breath he took, his lungs were flapping around in the space left in his chest cavity by the chunk of his heart that was no longer there.
***
Little Dean, not so little anyone, had said it was okay to go, and Sam had closed his eyes and when he opened them again it was sunny and he felt reborn. Actually, to be more precise, he felt about forty again, creaky in some places but a damn sight more limber than he’d been in that hospital bed. He squinted against the sun, felt almost a little too warm in the layers he was wearing.
Was he wearing a hoodie?
He was on the edge of a field, near a building. The Roadhouse. Bobby was sitting on a bench outside, waiting for him.
“Hiya, Sam.”
“Hiya, Bobby.” Sam walked a few feet, feeling light. It took him a second to put his finger on the exact feeling—he felt rested. Weird. He sat down next to his old friend. Next best thing to a father, actually. “You the welcome wagon?”
“Self appointed,” Bobby drawled. “You disappointed it wasn’t someone else?”
“It’s good to see you.” Sam didn’t feel disappointed. He felt anticipation, like something good was going to happen. Like it was Christmas morning, or what he figured Christmas morning was supposed to feel like. What he had tried to make it feel like for little Dean for a few years before the kid got old enough to pretend he was too cool for it.
“You, too, son.” They just sat for a minute—or it could have been longer. Sam felt rested, he felt anticipation, and he also felt as if the passage of time was something distant, like a sensation he could barely remember and didn’t need to concern himself with.
“So how does it work here now?” Sam asked eventually. “This isn’t a memory.”
“Jack and the angels that are left ditched the greatest hits idea a while ago. It’s more like on-demand now, I guess. You can be in places you’ve been or with people you knew, or you can go someplace new, mingle with the stars. Hell, you could probably go to a star. Haven’t been too adventurous, myself.”
“So you can see people,” Sam ventured, “like Mom and Dad?”
“Sure as anything.”
“What if they don’t want to see you?”
“I don’t think that matters. You wanna see your Momma, you can see her. You won’t be bothering her or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. And if she’s waiting on you, your heavens can overlap, at least for a while.”
“So how do you get there?”
Bobby tapped the side of his head. “You just start walking and you end up where you want to. It’s not hard. Any idjit can do it.”
Sam smiled. Again, it felt foreign to move his face like that. But good. “Well, thanks for the tips, Bobby.” He looked around the outside of the Roadhouse. There weren’t any cars in the dusty parking area, and none passing by on the road. The sky was bleached out blue. “You okay here?”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m abiding.”
“Did you—I mean. Have you seen him?”
“Saw him when he first got here. Haven’t seen him since.”
Sam didn’t know what that meant. “Is he okay?”
“Seemed all right. He took off in that car of his.”
Sam smiled again at that. Dean and his baby, reunited in heaven. He wondered briefly if little Dean was actually driving the real one or keeping her garaged, the way Sam had done for the most part. Sam had told him he could do anything but sell her and to give her to any future Winchesters that might come along.
“He’s waiting on you, though,” Bobby said gravely. “Maybe in a little while you can get him to come visit ole Bobby.”
Sam didn’t know what to do with that. Dean had been waiting all this time? But then again, time was—time wasn’t a thing, here, apparently.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Sam said. He felt that twitch of anticipation again. It was time to go. “Thanks, Bobby. See you.”
“See you, Sam.”
They stood and Bobby gave him a rib-cracking hug. Sam laughed and hugged back. He left the shade of the Roadhouse and started walking down the sun-bleached pavement. He looked back, and the Roadhouse was gone, replaced by giant evergreens. The air was suddenly cool and the sun hidden behind the tops of the trees all around him. But he was still on a road. He kept walking forward, breathing in the fresh, crisp air. He saw the metal trusses of a bridge ahead. He kept walking, elated with the knowledge that every step was bringing him closer to his brother.
The Impala was parked right smack in the middle of the bridge, as if she owned the place. Dean was leaning against the side of the bridge, foot propped up on the rail. Sam must have made a noise, because Dean turned around, smiling. They didn’t need to say anything more than each other’s names. They hugged and the gaping hole in Sam’s chest filled in with light and warmth and love and joy. Sam had waited years for this. It was worth it. Dean would always be worth an eternity of waiting.
***
Later—how much later was both impossible to determine and incredibly unimportant seeming—they climbed into the Impala. She smelled exactly the way she had when Dean had picked Sam up from Stanford. She smelled like Dean. Sam could live in that smell for the rest of his—
He laughed.
“What’s so funny?” It was the first sentence Dean had uttered.
“Just—I’m dead.” Sam laughed again.
Dean smirked. “We’re both dead, dude.”
“I know. It feels different, doesn’t it. From the other times.”
Dean put the key in his baby’s ignition, but didn’t turn it. “It is different. Before, we died leaving behind a hell of a lot of unfinished business. This is like an eternal vacation. We’re at peace and shit. We earned it.”
“Damn straight,” Sam agreed. An eternal vacation. He liked the sound of that. He and Dean had never quite gotten around to taking any actual vacations. A few days in between hunts or being thrown around by cosmic beings didn’t count. But Dean wasn’t exactly right about there being no unfinished business.
“So where do you want to go first?” Dean asked. His hand was on the key. His eyes were on Sam.
Sam could have answered by telling the truth; it didn’t matter where they went. As long as he was in the passenger seat and Dean was driving, Sam would literally go anywhere. Or nowhere. He would sit on this bridge for a million years, if Dean was sitting there with him. But he said something else. “First I want to kiss you. Would that be all right?”
Dean slowly took his hand off the key, but his gaze never left Sam. “Oh.”
They had never done it. They had talked about it, in a roundabout way, once or twice. Maybe more times than that, but Sam had tried not to dwell on it when they always reached the same conclusion—that they shouldn’t, for one reason or another. Usually timing, but maybe that was just an excuse. Sam had always been completely aware of his own feelings on the subject. Over the years, he’d figured out that Dean’s feelings were similar. It was something they both wanted and something neither of them would do. And that was that.
But that was then. When they were alive.
This was Heaven. And since time was a nonexistent feature, they couldn’t blame timing anymore. As far as his and Dean’s heaven went, they were the only two people here. The only two people in the universe, in a way.
Being alone with his brother was all Sam had ever really wanted.
But the silence stretched out into a small eternity of its own, or perhaps it was only a few seconds, and Dean hadn’t said anything more than, “Oh.” Maybe Sam was wrong and all this time he was the only one who had wanted this.
Dean cleared his throat. “You wanna kiss me, Sammy?” His voice was hoarse with hope.
Sam’s shoulders sagged in relief. “I wanna kiss you, Dean.”
“Come on then.”
Sam took in everything all at once as he leaned slowly forward. Dean’s eyes were the clear green of a slowly unfurling fern, like the ones at the base of the trees on the other side of the bridge. His freckles and stubble added texture to his otherwise sculpture-perfect face. His hair was as short as ever. Sam wondered if it would grow in Heaven, or if they were locked into these looks. He darted his tongue out to lick his top lip. If they were stuck like this, well, Dean looked damn good. He always had. He always would, to Sam.
He closed the last few inches, placed his mouth on top of his brother’s. He moved his lips across Dean’s in a soft, slow sweep, until Dean opened his mouth and let Sam’s tongue slip inside. Sam had wanted this kiss since before he knew was kissing was, and it didn’t disappoint. Dean felt perfect, strong and warm, soft and insistent. When Dean touched his tongue to Sam’s, it was if they’d both been shocked with a few hundred volts. Sam groaned and deepened the kiss. Dean fisted his hand in Sam’s jacket, scooted across the bench seat to get closer.
Eventually they would stop kissing long enough to drive away. They would talk and they would explore and they would probably get up to trouble, by Heaven standards, anyway. They would fuck and they would laugh and they would fight a little, too. They were still brothers, after all. But that was all later, in the timeless expanse of being dead and spending the afterlife with his soulmate.
Now, they kissed in the Impala on a bridge in the middle of nowhere in Heaven for—well, who knew how long? They kissed for five minutes.
They kissed forever.