Chapter Text
October 2026
They’d been in Ithaca for four years, tucked up in their quiet one-bedroom on East Falls, when Sam stumbled across their house.
They’d seen the sign for it when they were on their way out of town for a weekend: Dean itching a little for a long sweet stretch of blacktop, Sam slouched next to him with his dark messy head tipped back, drowsy and content and looking for all the world like he was twenty-two again. Outside of his brother’s sleepy comment of Dean-look-there’s-a-lake-house-for-sale, and a general impression of weathered shingles and a sharp-peaked roof, Dean hadn’t paid the place all that much mind as they’d passed it. He was just happy to be on the road, early light in the sky and a cool wind on his skin, Sammy beside him and his baby purring beneath.
In retrospect, he decided, he should have known better. His little brother may have put on two feet of height and roughly eight hundred pounds of muscle since he was eleven, but his I want voice had never really changed.
***
They were heading back toward Ithaca by late Sunday afternoon, and Dean was drowsing in the passenger seat, warm and sleepy and full of pie. He cracked an eyelid as he felt the engine slow, and then Sam was inexplicably steering them onto the shoulder. Dean blinked himself all the way awake as they rumbled to an easy stop. There was a FOR SALE sign outside his window, and beyond it the same sweet rambling house the kid had noticed Friday morning.
He looked over at Sam. ‘Dude.’
‘I just want to see,’ he said, climbing out of the car, and was gone up the drive before Dean could reply. Sighing, Dean followed him out, stood leaning against the car with his coffee as Sam prowled around the house like a creeper.
‘You done, Martha Stewart?’ he asked, wryly, when the kid came back a good ten minutes later, something sweet and nervous all at once evident in every line of his body. ‘Sammy, seriously, what the hell?’
‘I wanted to see,’ he said again, simply, and Dean would have pressed him on it, he really would have, but Sam chose that moment to crowd him against the side of the Impala and kiss him, warm and deep and happy, heedless of the half-cup of coffee in Dean's hand or the car honking wildly behind them as it passed, and Dean—well, Dean suddenly had this armful of smiling baby brother and an empty back seat, and nowhere else he needed, or wanted, to be.
Sam said nothing else about the house until late that evening, when they were stretched out in bed together naked and warm and half asleep, soft clean sheets tucked close around them and the window half-open to the autumn night. Someone had a wood fire going, somewhere, and their room was cool and dark and smelled like the turning of the year.
‘Dean?’
Dean stroked an idle hand through his brother’s soft hair. ‘Mmm.’
His voice was soft and low, but as certain as Dean had ever heard it. ‘I want us to buy that house.’
***
The place had been standing empty for two years and gone into foreclosure nine months ago, and Sam and Dean weren’t facing a whole lot of competition as potential buyers: late autumn, as it turned out, was apparently not the time most people came to upstate New York to buy a house. Sam went to see it with the realtor on his own at first, because Dean couldn’t get time off work until the weekend. Dean was pretty sure the kid was aiming for casual as he watched Dean look through the pictures he’d taken that evening, but you could have seen the hope shining in his pretty eyes from space, and though Dean had been fairly noncommittal over supper—looks nice; I like the yard; pass the potatoes, Sammy—he got up that night to go over the numbers, quietly, sitting up at their small kitchen table with Sam’s laptop glowing in front of him, the reading glasses he absolutely refused to acknowledge he needed these days perched low on his nose.
He read for a long while, as the internet had considerably more to offer about how to buy a house than it had ever had on how to kill a demon. He pulled up their bank records after awhile, opened the calculator app, punched in numbers. Read some more. Punched in different numbers. Twice. Three times. In the end he shut the laptop with a quiet click and tossed his glasses down beside it and squeezed wearily at the bridge of his nose. He could swing a lot of seemingly impossible things—saving the world, saving his brother, not eating all the Halloween candy before the trick-or-treaters came—but this . . . the impeccable credit history Charlie had built for them one cheerful afternoon in Kansas would get a bank to take them seriously for a little while, maybe, but they had no money for a down payment, and even if they’d had, and were able to manage a mortgage all right on top of it, there were apparently property taxes to worry about, and utility bills, and fixing stuff that broke, and Dean didn’t see a way around any of that, no matter how hard he tried. His paycheck and Sam’s and the occasional hustle kept them in burgers and beer and this snug little apartment, but his paycheck and Sam’s and the occasional hustle weren’t going to net them a house.
He sat for awhile in the dark, heart-sore, then padded quietly back to bed and crawled back in beside his little brother. Sammy didn’t wake, just snuffled and rolled toward him in his sleep; and Dean lifted an arm and let him burrow in warm and close, because no matter how much the kid had been insisting on personal space and privacy and could-you-leave-me-alone-for-just-two-seconds-Dean ever since he’d turned twelve, Sam had never really outgrown his childhood love of being cuddled at night. Dean settled a hand in his little brother’s hair and looked up into the dark and blew out a tired, discontented breath, wondered if he could maybe knock over a bank without too much fuss in the morning. Or sell a kidney. Hey, possibly he could sell other people’s kidneys; he’d never much liked Sam’s friend Greg all that much anyway, or the bitchy waitress at the Mexican place he and Sam had found in Dryden; and who was gonna miss the asshole who came in to the Lincoln St. Diner every other week or so to hassle the manager? That was three kidneys right there—four, really, if he decided to just off the diner asshole all together—and while he had no idea what random organs went for on the black market, he was pretty sure it was, you know, a lot.
It was fifteen minutes later, and Dean had compiled a lengthy mental list of potential organ donors, when he remembered the bunker.
It’s not like he’d ever forgotten it, mind. He and Sam hadn’t been back in a couple of years, and Dean wasn’t certain they ever would be, but he knew that Aaron and Garth and Bahati used the place as and when they needed to, and Dean was glad of it. He’d never gotten on board with the Men of Letters’ MO of research for research’s sake; if you knew how to take down evil, you fucking told the good guys how, and if you had weapons that made it easier, you passed ‘em out like candy, soon as you were sure that no one was gonna cut off their own feet.
Those vast resources of lore books and sharp, shiny, dangerous things that the Men of Letters had acquired over the centuries were his and Sam's only to hold in trust for future generations of hunters, and Dean would have firmly believed that even if Bela hadn’t taught him what kind of folks dealt in supernatural artifacts for cash. But Robert Johnson’s shellac 78s in the third storeroom, the classic cars in the garage, the pristine first editions of The Chronicles of Narnia that his baby brother had once geeked his nerdy little heart out over in the library—who the hell was it going to hurt, if they sold some of those?
It wouldn’t bring them millions—wouldn’t bring them half a million, not even close—but it would probably bring them enough.
He looked down at his little brother, and felt the same hopeless, helpless, wordless tenderness as ever welling up inside his chest. Watch out for Sammy, their father had told him, all his life, and Dean could do that—still, always.
***
Dean was making pancake batter when Sam shuffled into the kitchen the next morning, wearing his sleep pants and only one sock, sporting a seriously epic bedhead, and rubbing at his eyes like a little kid. He grunted something that might have been a good morning in Dean’s general direction and curled up over a mug of coffee at their little table beneath the eave, and he was mostly conscious by the time Dean tucked a plate of pancakes and eggs under his nose and sat down across from him to eat.
‘We gotta be sure the structure’s good first, okay?’ Dean finally said, after they’d eaten for awhile in companionable silence. ‘Before you go gettin’ any more crazy-ass ideas, Sammy. We buy a house, ‘s not gonna be one about to fall down around our ears.’
The thing about Sam’s smile, Dean had always thought, was that it could so easily be confused with sunlight.
***
They called the real estate agent after breakfast, and went over after lunch. She was a friend of Sam’s (and also entirely too handsy with Sam, in Dean’s expertly qualified opinion, not that anyone, like Sam, was interested in listening to him), and she offered them a list of qualified home inspectors to choose from on the spot, but Dean had spent four summers in his twenties and a full year in his early thirties working construction, and he didn’t need someone with a clipboard and some initials after their name to tell him whether a house were sound. He spent three hours that afternoon going over the place from roof to cellar, heard the rumble of an SUV engine and crunch of tires on gravel outside maybe five minutes before he was done. Went out a little while later to find Sam sitting on the front steps, long hands wrapped around what Dean had no doubt was a ridiculously girly coffee, looking out at the lake that the yard tumbled in to, clear and cold and grey beneath the cloudy autumn sky. It was only late October, but Dean could already see his little brother’s breath frosting in the air, and he was bundled up like a little kid in that ridiculous duffel coat he’d insisted on last winter, because these are what real people wear, Dean.
He said nothing as Dean sat down beside him, just scooted over a little to give him room, and they watched the water together in silence, shoulders pressed in warm and close. Dean took a slug of his brother’s coffee just to be a pain in the ass, and then another because maybe he didn’t hate that sugary frou-frou pumpkin spice latte shit quite as much as he pretended to. Their agent was chatting on her cell phone at the end of the drive, giving them space, though Dean could feel her eyes on them now and again, appraising and shrewd.
‘HVAC system’s on its way out,’ Dean said, finally, looking down at his hands. The gleam and weight of his wedding ring still startled him now and again, a full two years after he’d first put it on. ‘Year and a half, Sammy, tops, and we’d have to replace the whole damn thing. Furnace, conditioner, duct work. That’s about twelve thousand bucks.’
Sam sipped at his coffee. ‘S a lot,’ he said, softly.
‘Roof needs to be redone, too. Soon. Last year, as a matter of fact. Lot of curled shingles. Attic doesn’t have a lot of water damage, so that’s good, but it’s got shitload of mold, ‘cause it was never vented properly. And the venting would be easy enough to fix, really, but the mold would be a pain in the ass. Have to get someone in to do it, probably have to replace a couple beams.’ He rubbed at the back of his neck, considering. ‘Walls and roof deck and the foundation are good,’ he admitted. ‘Basement’s got spiders that look like they eat cats, but it doesn’t look like it floods. Got a sweet workbench down there, too. But we could do better, Sammy. You said the bank’s sellin’ this as-is, right? No negotiatin’ on the price?’
Sam nodded, once.
‘Then they’re askin’ a lot, for the work that needs to be done. Too much, I think.’ His throat hurt a little. ‘I’m sorry, kiddo.’
Sam looked down at his coffee cup for a long moment. ‘S been on the market for a long time,’ he finally said. He looked over at his brother, and oh, fuck, the puppy eyes; Dean should have known; he should have been prepared. ‘Maybe they’d be willing to go down a little, you know? I mean, we could maybe make an offer. See what happens.’
‘Or we could just find another house, Sam. ‘S not like this one is the only one for sale in the state, right? We haven’t even looked at any others.’
‘Yeah, I know, it’s just . . . yeah,’ he said, nodding firmly, and looked down again. ‘You’re right. I just kinda . . . I kinda liked this one, you know?’
The wind kicked up a little, chilly and damp, and Sam tucked his shoulders in against it. And though his little brother was shifting only because of the cold, and Dean knew it, he was still reminded, sharply, of the way Sam had always curled into the backseat whenever they’d left somewhere the kid had started to think of as home—even if it was nothing but one of the shitty motel rooms Dean had tried to make a home, when their father was three weeks in the wind and Bobby half a continent away, and the only thing he could offer his little brother was mac-and-cheese and a nest of blankets and the warm cradle of his arms. It hurt.
I just kinda . . . I kinda liked this one, you know?
Dean looked at him, in silence, for a long, long moment. Then, wearily: ‘You’re gonna want a fuckin’ dog, aren’t you.'
Sam looked up at him, startled, before the hint of a smile started tugging at the edges of his stupid, pretty mouth. Dean glowered at him, looked away, sighed, scrubbed a hand over his face. Stood up. Stomped toward the end of the drive.
‘Where are you going?’ Sam called.
‘To tell her we want the damn house!’ he shouted, without turning, and smiled, helplessly, as he heard Sam’s bright, happy laugh from behind him.
***
It was a month before they closed.
They had the money for a down payment within two weeks—Charlie, tucked up with Dorothy and their daughter Neve less than an hour out of Lebanon, had gleefully volunteered to run point on selling things—but there were applications to fill out and things to file and a shitload of pointless waiting to be done, and so it was late November by the time Dean slouched into the bank for a meeting with the money people. The day was cold and wet, and Sam had still been a little pissy with him that morning for scattering his filing system all to hell the evening before. (And yeah, okay, so maybe it was Dean’s fault for fucking his little brother over the table when it had been covered in messy piles of paper, but it’s not like Dean had known the piles were organized, and it’s not like Sammy had said no, and anyway the kid had been wearing those goddamned jeans with the worn knees and torn hems, and Dean felt that counted for a lot, in the scheme of things. He strongly suspected that saints would not be able to resist his little brother in those jeans.) So he was in a fairly foul temper anyway when he arrived at the bank, straight from work in his jeans and tee, motor oil and grease still black beneath his fingernails; and being forced to make conversation with Annie the Handsy Realtor, while two schlubs in suits eyed him as though wondering what wrong turn he’d taken to end up in their bank, was not improving his day.
He was approximately thirty seconds away from punching one of said schlubs in the face just on general principle when Sam showed up, in the blue shirt Dean privately loved him in and the fitted pants that made his ass look fantastic, messenger bag at his hip and glasses tucked in his shirt pocket. He bent to kiss Dean firmly on the mouth where he was sitting, one hand sliding warm and possessive around the back of his neck, then smiled at Annie as he straightened, and settled himself easily beside Dean at the table.
'Hi,' Sam said to the schlubs, briskly. Dean bit back a smile, mood already lightening, because from the expressions on the faces of the men across from him, he was guessing that they'd been expecting something else entirely for the husband of the grumpy mechanic. Sam took out two copies of the eighteen pounds of paperwork the bank had sent them, slid one in front of Dean, held onto the other. 'I'm Sam. Sorry to be late, so let's get started, okay? My husband and I have some concerns about the papers you sent over. If we could start on page two?'
Dean was pretty sure that he himself had no concerns over the papers the bank had sent over; he was pretty sure he'd never even looked at the papers the bank had sent over. But Sam, gorgeous and polite and professional, went over almost every line of almost every page with a laser focus that had the schlubs shifting from condescending to flustered in the space of approximately half an hour, and by the time the kid pulled out a list of comparable properties in the same county selling for substantially lower prices, they clearly wanted to cry and go home. In the end they agreed to deduct the price of the roof and attic repairs from the cost of the house and to warrantee the HVAC system for a year, and Sam smiled at them with the satisfaction of a cat who had eaten several prime canaries and also a bowl of cream.
Dean gave his little brother a particularly awesome blowjob in their car in the parking lot after, because that little performance had really been one of the hottest things he’d ever seen in his life, and then he took him out for supper at their usual diner, Sammy still looking suspiciously loose-hipped and dazed and happy.
Sara, their usual waitress, five feet of snark and sass and pretty dark hair, patted Dean on the back as she dropped off their burgers.
Dean was pretty sure he deserved it.
***
They moved into the house in the middle of December.
Annie was waiting for them when they pulled up, their two duffels’ worth of clothes and most of Sam’s sixteen thousand books in the trunk, groceries and their kitchen stuff and the rest of Sam’s sixteen thousand books in the back. It was grey outside and cold, but the house was already bright and warm and welcoming: the week beforehand, Sam had called the gas company and the electric company and the water people to make sure that everything was turned on before they came, since Sam was organized and planned for things like this. Dean had called a furniture store, Best Buy, and AT&T, so that the same morning Annie the Handsy Realtor finally gave them their keys, there was a king-sized bed, an eight-foot couch, two televisions, and a cable guy that arrived at their front door, because Dean was forty-seven years old and no longer interested in sleeping bags, and he wasn’t missing his Sunday afternoon football game just because Sam had decided they needed to move in to a house today. Sam, amused, puttered around in the kitchen while the cable guy was working and Dean was knocking together the bedframe and making up the bed, and by the time 3:00 rolled around, there was cornbread and beer and, Dean had to admit, a really quite respectable chili.
It was possible that Sam was learning how to cook. Dean wasn't sure if this would someday extend to other skills in the kitchen—‘cause sure, the kid could wrest control of his body back from Lucifer, no problem; remembering to run the goddamned dishwasher, on the other hand, was apparently beyond him—but it was possible he was learning how to cook.
Would wonders never cease.
They ate on the couch with the game on. And if by halftime they’d piled their empty bowls and bottles and forks and plates carelessly on the floor beside them, and if Dean were propped comfortably against one arm of the sofa with his little brother lying cradled against his chest and in the vee of his legs, both of them stretched out beneath a heavy fleece blanket and looking every inch like the married, middle-aged couple they were, well—it’s not like Dean was gonna have to admit it.
Sam fell asleep halfway through the third quarter, face tucked into the crook of Dean’s neck, breath huffing warm and damp against his skin, and Dean watched the rest of the game with one hand tangled in his little brother’s hair, fingers carding gently through all the soft, messy silk that was starting to grey just a little at Sam’s temples. When the talking heads came on awhile later, wanting to explain to Dean everything he’d just been watching for the past three hours, he poked at the remote until he managed to switch off the TV, and then he lay quietly for awhile in the dark of their living room, listening to the near-empty house breathe all around them. It wasn’t going to be empty all that long. The furniture folks were coming back on Friday, with the two giant squishy chairs Sam had wanted for the living room and a warm red rug the kid had liked; and tomorrow, he thought idly, or maybe Tuesday, he’d borrow Nan’s pick-up, drive out to the lumberyard to talk to Jake, take a look at his stock. He could knock together a kitchen table and a few chairs by the end of the week, a couple of dressers for the bedroom by the beginning of the next, and he’d make the rest of what they needed for the house over the next few months, piece by piece. He wanted walnut, or maybe oak: heavy, beautiful, meant to last.
‘Hey,’ he said, tugging lightly on his little brother’s hair.
Sam made a soft, whiny little sound against his chest that Dean tried really hard not to find adorable. ‘Sleepin’,’ he muttered, fingers tightening in Dean’s Henley, every bit as clingy as he had been as a little boy. ‘Warm. Leave me ‘lone.’
‘How many bookcases are you gonna need, you think?’
Sam yawned, sleepily. ‘. . . all of them,’ he murmured.
‘Helpful, Sammy.’
Sam bit at his collarbone through the soft waffled cotton of his shirt, tucked his head more firmly beneath his brother’s chin. ‘Shut up,’ he murmured, ‘tryin’a sleep,’ and he was out again a moment later. Dean smiled up at the ceiling, thought that he’d start with six. And he was pretty sure Sam was gonna get a kick out of having a bookcase door, if he could figure out how to rig one.
His eyes were growing heavy. It was barely half past six, but it was quiet and dark and he was warm, he was so wonderfully warm, and he had a full stomach and a double armful of sleepy, snuffly Sam—and they were home, the two of them, finally, at last, for true.
He tucked his mouth and nose into his little brother’s hair and closed his eyes, and he was asleep before the snow started falling, blanketing the world outside in white.