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The vamp had a good hold of him. Dean knew he couldn't escape. Not in time. He drew a deep breath. He could taste the blood in his mouth, hear his heart beating faster. His eyes fell on his partner on the floor, bleeding. Then he looked back at the vamp. Somehow, he had always expected it to end like this. It was part of the job description, and Dean had chosen the job himself.
The vamp opened its mouth, fangs descending.
Dean closed his eyes. Moments later, he felt sharp teeth sink into his neck. He watched his life flash before his eyes. His childhood, his friends, his mom, his dad, and his multiple hunting partners. His dad had passed away over two decades ago. Dean had still been young then, but he remembered his dad's stories about the afterlife clearly. Dad always said Dean would go to heaven, but he wasn't sure.
Steadily, it became harder to breathe. Dean tried to open his eyes, but all he could see was a blinding white. Too much blood loss, most likely. The last thing he thought of, strangely, was his uncle's car, long retired to the bunker garage. He could feel its black coating against his palm, like he was caressing it gently. That car had been his childhood. Absentmindedly, he wondered who would take care of it now.
Next thing he knew, he was standing next to it, next to its beautiful, bulky black. He slid his palm across its smooth paint. The car had looked enormous to Dean as a kid, especially compared to other cars. It had a front and a back and was way too long to parallel park. Why did his dad ever think it was a good idea to teach him how to park this thing? The Chevy 1967 Impala had always been a hassle to park and unpark. His dad had no trouble doing that, though. He kept driving the car up until he couldn't see very well anymore.
“For god's sake, Dean! Are you doing this on purpose?”
Dean whipped around to find the source of the voice. If his dad's stories were right and he was in heaven, then this had to be one of his memories. He didn't see anyone around him. The car stood alone in a motel parking lot.
“Are you laughing right now? Stop leaving your socks in my face. What are you? Fourteen?” The voice said again. Dean located the source and took a step towards it.
“Hey! I was worse when I was fourteen.” A second voice said, snickering. Dean followed the sound.
“Insufferable was what you were.” The first voice said, and Dean could swear he knew that voice from somewhere. He just couldn't put a finger on it and —
“Now, now, don't get your panties in a twist, Sammy. I made you breakfast.”
Dean froze as the first voice spoke again, and he finally recognized it; his dad, sounding way more youthful and energetic than he had ever heard him, but his dad all the same. Dean ran towards the voices. It didn't make sense. He had no memory of this. He could swear up and down that he had never heard his dad speak so… so happily. Dad had always had a shadow of pain in his eyes and a weariness to his voice. Not now, though.
As Dean reached the door to room 103, the voices got slightly louder.
“I don't know if I should be weirded out or happy that you actually made me a veggie burger.” The first voice, Dad's voice, said.
“I think you are supposed to be happy, being in heaven and all.” The second voice replied.
Dean knocked on the door. He felt like he intruded on the scene somehow, but if that was his dad in there, then Dean had to see him.
“Who's that?” The second voice asked.
“I don't know,” Dad said. “Maybe Charlie is here to watch porn with you again.”
“We were not watching porn! We were just appreciating—”
“—the acting of naked ladies, yes, of course.” Dad laughed.
The sound of a chair being dragged, steps closing in, then the door opened, and Dean gaped.
Dad looked young, younger than Dean had ever seen him. He couldn't be more than 35, no trace of white on his hair, and clean-shaven.
“Dean?” Dad said softly.
“H—hey, Dad,” Dean said, awkwardly. He wasn’t sure how this worked. Why was Dad so young? This couldn’t be one of his best memories, right? He would remember it.
Before he had any time to process, Dad pulled him into a tight hug.
“Damn.” Dad chuckled. “I missed you, kid.”
Dean allowed himself to push his face against his dad’s shoulder, like he used to do many, many years ago. It was a small indulgence. It had taken Dean months to get over his dad’s death. But here was the man now, not a memory, just his Dad.
“Sammy?” The second voice from before called from inside. “Who is it? Because there’s no way Charlie would be so silent.”
Dad pulled back and smiled down at Dean.
“There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Dean let himself be pulled inside the motel room, and then he saw him, the owner of the second voice, a man whom he had only seen in photographs, a man whose photograph had never left Dad’s night table.
“Is that…?” Dean trailed off. He didn’t know how to face this man, this man who always held the secrets to Dad’s sadness. Dean had heard countless stories about Uncle Dean, but it had been just that: stories. Dean had spent years hating his uncle, the uncle he was named after. There had been whole weeks or months during his childhood when Dad couldn’t even speak his name. It was always ‘kid’, or ‘son’, or ‘boy’, and it shouldn’t have been obvious to him, but it kinda was when it happened all the time. He hated his name, hated this man for making it an object of godhood for his dad, an object Dean could never reach.
“Dean,” Dad said, smiling, “this is your uncle Dean.”
Uncle’s eyes widened. A big, wide smile broke his expression, and he shot up like an arrow.
“Damn, he’s got your puppy dog eyes.” Uncle cooed and moved closer.
“Dean,” Dad whined. And it was his name, but somehow it wasn’t. Not the way he said it. Not the way he called him.
“Sorry, sorry.” Uncle chuckled and grabbed Dean’s shoulder. He pulled him in a one-armed hug. “Heya, nephew.”
“H–Hi…” Dean mumbled. And it felt wrong, but he leaned against him, like his body knew exactly what his uncle’s embrace could provide. He felt… safe, in a way he had only felt inside the Impala. It didn’t take him long to realize that Uncle smelled like the Impala, or the Impala smelled like Uncle. He wouldn’t know. He didn’t know which came first.
“Look at you being all shy.” Uncle guided him towards a chair. “Come on, kiddo. Tell me everything. How bad of a father was Sam?”
Dean glanced at his dad, standing there, smiling with tears in his eyes, taking in the scene. He wondered if this was how his dad looked when he was happy, and dreaded the answer. Dean had never managed to put that expression in Dad’s face on his own, but Uncle did it effortlessly.
“Are you seriously crying right now, Sammy?” Uncle raised his brow.
Dad wiped his tears off with a humph. He sat down next to Dean and put a hand on his shoulder.
Uncle rolled his eyes and turned around. He grabbed a plate from the cupboard and put something on it. When he turned around, Dean saw that it was a portion similar to the one his dad had in front of him.
“Dig in, kiddo.” Uncle put it in front of him and took a seat. “You really came at a bad time, though. My food is usually much more tasty than this rabbit food.”
“Much more greasy, you mean,” Dad said.
“Oh, lay off.” Uncle rolled his eyes. “Not like I can have a heart attack in heaven, right?”
The easy bantering lasted a bit longer. Dean listened to them like an intruding onlooker. It wasn’t fair. That was his dad right there, and he might be sitting next to him, but his eyes didn’t leave Uncle Dean for a second.
Dean felt sick. He didn’t want to see this. Didn’t understand it. Didn’t want to understand it. All he understood was the pit inside his stomach that kept growing larger, deeper, brewing.
“So how was your life, kiddo?” Dad finally looked at him.
“Uh…” Dean didn’t know how to start, or finish, really, but he gave it a try. “I kept hunting. Had this group of hunter friends, and we had a nice system going on.”
Uncle Dean let out a whistle. When Dean glanced at him, he saw him smiling… proudly?
“And I… uh… I think I had a good time, yeah.” And he had. Even if he died at 47, he didn’t regret hunting one bit. Dad hadn’t raised him into it. Not really. Dean hadn’t learned the truth about monsters until he snuck inside Dad’s office and read his journal. He instantly believed everything he read because it fit. It explained why his mom and dad took turns staying with him and leaving for short business trips.
He was fifteen and ready to join the family business. His parents argued about it. Dean couldn’t hear them, of course. A locked door and sign language were a sure way to keep the conversation private after all. The consensus was that he could train, but wouldn’t hunt. And sure enough, Dean went on his first hunt when he was well into his twenties.
“Well, consider me surprised.” Uncle grinned at Dad. “I was sure you wouldn’t have raised your kid in the life.”
“Not that I had much of a choice.” Dad shook his head and looked fondly at Dean. “He found out all on his own and then wouldn’t shut up about it.”
“Oh, so like you did at eight.” Uncle chuckled, eyes glinting.
And Dean couldn’t watch this. He didn’t know how to connect this version of Sam Winchester with his dad. It was obvious that his dad had been a shadow of this man, already half dead the entire time.
So Dean ran out of there. He needed air. Needed to stay far away from his namesake and this motel, and Dad’s life before he came along. It was too much, too fast, and Dean sought out the only other thing that made him feel safe: the Impala.
He gave a silent thank you to god that the car was unlocked, which made sense. Why would anyone steal a car in heaven anyway? He sat down in the backseat and leaned back.
By the time he had grown tall enough to sit in the front, the car had become much too difficult to drive. Would break down every few miles, cost a fortune to gas up, and was a hassle to park.
Dean had driven it a few times when he learned to drive, but most of his memories of this car were in the backseat, as a child, with mom and dad in front. Mom drove most. He hadn’t understood why at the time, but he had figured it out in his teens. The passenger seat had been Dad’s seat.
“What am I doing here…?” He murmured in the safety of the car. “Wrong heaven.”
There was a knock on the window, and he shot up as if caught. Uncle was there, grinning at him. He pulled the door open and got behind the wheel like he belonged there. He probably did.
“Wanna go for a drive?”
Dean shook his head.
“Shame,” Uncle said, “I would have shown you how this car was really driven. Bet Sammy drove her like a nerd.”
Dean nodded. He didn’t know how to talk to this man.
Uncle sighed and leaned against the driver’s door, legs up on the bench.
“Well, be that as it may, there’s something I need to say to you.” Uncle looked at him straight on, serious. “Fair warning, I am awful at the whole ‘talking about my feelings’ thing and chronically allergic to chick flick moments, but some things need to be said and this is one of them.”
Dean nodded slowly, confused. What could this man have to say to him…? Maybe he would ask him to leave him and Dad alone. They looked happy enough in this place. Dean probably intruded on something he had no right to. He should negotiate for visiting rights, though. Sam was his dad after all.
But Uncle didn’t say that.
“I wanted to thank you,” he paused, bit his lip, continued, “for keeping Sam alive. For giving him a reason to keep fighting.”
And… oh.
This man was… he wasn’t a stranger, and he didn’t hate him or want him away. Uncle Dean was not the lock-keeper to Dad’s life; he was the key.
“He cried a lot,” Dean blurted out. It seemed important. “Sometimes, he got really quiet for weeks. Wouldn’t talk to anyone. He slept in here, in the Impala.”
“He had his growth sprout late,” Uncle offered in return, “was already fifteen and still a pipsqueak, then he shot up. He was insufferable for the first month after he surpassed me in height.
“He kept this amulet under his pillow,” Dean admitted. “I took it and hid it in my desk drawer once, and he yelled at me. Didn’t let me in his room for weeks.”
Uncle’s eyes softened before he shared another anecdote from Dad’s childhood.
Hours and several stories later, Dean finally shared his truth.
“I hated you when I was younger. I thought… I thought you were the one making Dad sad. But I was wrong.” Dean leaned his head against the window. “You made him happier than anyone else ever could.”
Uncle smiled.
“I hate that there are whole decades of Sam’s life that I wasn’t there for.” A pause. “But I am glad you were there, looking after him.”
Dean nodded, a smile finally finding itself on his lips. They were similar, the two of them. They both held a piece of Sam Winchester’s life.
It was around then that his dad finally bit the bullet and forced himself into the car, sliding in the passenger seat and unwinding right there.
“So how about that drive now?” Uncle offered again.
This time, Dean had no reason to refuse.
“Where to?”
“We could try Eileen,” Dad offered. “She’s with her adoptive mother, Lillian.”
“You’ve been to see her?” Dean asked. “I thought you said everyone gets their separate heaven.”
“Yeah, well, apparently some things have changed.” Dad chuckled. “You can see anyone you want, or no one at all. It’s your choice.”
“I… I would like to see Mom,” Dean said.
“Then to Eileen’s it is!” Uncle said and turned on the ignition.
It felt like a family road trip, and it felt like home.
Dean decided to stay with his mother for a while. Sam and his Dean returned home. Sam would have liked for his son to stay with them a little longer, but he knew that to the untrained eye, his relationship with his brother was a bit intense. Not to mention the whole sleeping in the same bed with each other. They didn’t exactly hide it, but they didn’t go out of their way to advertise it either.
“So,” Dean started, “good kid, huh?”
“Yeah, he is.” Sam had hoped he would get to live a little longer, though. But then again, hunting’s a dangerous job.
“We talked a little, you know.” Dean didn’t look at Sam, his eyes properly on the road for once, even though there was no danger of a car crash in heaven.
“I guessed as much.” Sam chuckled. “I waited quite a while for you two to come back to the kitchen. Guess you Deans would choose the Impala over a hot meal every day.”
Dean laughed.
Sam smiled. It was nice seeing his son again, and his door would always be open for him. But Sam was always a bit selfish when it came to his brother, and he had stopped lying to himself after he came here. So, nothing stopped him from saying that—
“It was nice having him around.” Sam couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. “But I like it more when it’s just the two of us.”
Dean glanced at him, frowning. He hadn’t expected Sam to say that.
“It’s your son.”
“And you are my soulmate.” Sam grinned. It felt nice saying it out loud. “And if I had to choose which one of you I would spend eternity with, it would always be you.”
Dean’s gaze softened.
“Sap.” He accused.
“Call me whatever you want.” Sam gave a cocky smile. “I know what makes the afterlife perfect, and it’s not the absence of joint pain, or my son, or my wife, or anyone else we’ve met.”
“Oh, god.” Dean groaned, but a light blush had taken over his cheeks. “Just stop talking, bitch.”
“When have I ever stopped talking, jerk?”
Dean rolled his eyes and drove on.
Sam had a book to read back home, and Dean had promised to make apple pie today. At least Sam didn’t have to worry about his cholesterol and sugar anymore. Because Dean had been possessed by a cooking/baking demon, and he wouldn’t stop making Sam try everything out. Dean had fun doing it, so that made it okay for Sam, too.
After dinner, the plan was to watch Star Trek. Sam had lost track of the season or episode they were on, but Dean had noted it down somewhere; he always did. They had already gone through a great deal of shows before that, and they would keep going until Dean could watch all the long shows he never had the time or consistency to watch alive.
After their daily watching marathon, Sam would be too sleepy to get ready for bed on his own, so Dean would help him. He would sling an arm under his shoulders and drag him to the bathroom, help him wash his teeth and face, then help him put on his pajamas, and lastly, he would tuck him in before joining him. Just like they used to do when they were kids.
It had been an adjustment, getting used to this routine again. But Sam loved when Dean took care of him, and Dean loved to take care of him. And that was all that mattered.
The night his son showed up, Sam buried his head in the crook of Dean’s neck and breathed in his comforting scent.
“I wish you were there when he was born,” Sam whispered in the dark. “You would have been a great uncle.”
“Sammy…” Dean stroked his hair gently. “We both know the kid wouldn’t exist if I didn’t die.”
“I know.” Sam sighed. “But it would have been nice. You, and I, and Eileen, raising him together. Though I guess he would have a different name then. If you were there.”
“Hmm.” Dean did that thing with his voice that always made Sam sleepy. “What would you have named him?”
“Don’t know…” Sam yawned. “Could name him John.”
“That’s boring. You should give him a cool name. Like Angus, or Malcolm, with a middle name Young.”
“I am so not naming my kid after AC/DC guitarists.” Sam huffed and burrowed himself deeper into Dean’s embrace.
“How about Ozzy?”
“Black Sabbath isn’t an option either.”
“You are just shooting down all the cool names.” Dean chuckled.
“It’s okay. Because it’s a hypothetical scenario.” Sam smiled. “Besides, I already gave him the coolest name there is in the scenario that mattered.”
Dean fell silent for a moment, then planted a kiss on the top of Sam’s head.
“You never got over that hero admiration you had for me as a kid, huh?”
“Probably because you actually lived up to that in the end.” Sam gave a playful bite to Dean’s neck. “Now, go to sleep before you come up with another atrocious name for my kid.”
“Clint Eastwood.”
“No cowboys either.”
“You are no fun.” Dean pouted.
Sam grinned and smothered his nose against Dean’s neck and chin. He wished he had the chance to have this nonsensical conversation when it had even the tiniest potential of leading to an acceptable result.
But his son’s name would never have been anything other than Dean. And it might cause some confusion in the future, now that both of his Deans are around, but he would deal with it the same way he dealt with everything.
Together with his brother.