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Dean Winchester woke out of a sweet dream of childhood.
Father John Winchester was tossing his toddler self so high that he knew that the trees and the clouds and the sun, moon, and stars were just out of reach. Dean soared, arms in the air, the world paused, and he fell back into John’s strong embrace, hugged against a broad chest smelling of gasoline and burnt rubber.
No matter how well his father showered and scrubbed after his shift at the garage, John smelled like Baby, and Baby smelled like John.
Little Dream Dean shrieked in mock terror, then laughed, and his father laughed with him. Before he could catch his breath, John launched him and waited, hands outstretched, forever if need be, while he drifted back to earth. Keeping him safe. Again, and again.
-----
Speculation regarding Hunter-on-Hunter action would have you believe that the brothers’ inaugural round was mixed martial arts with teeth and pain and blood. Bruised thighs and wrists, shoulders and ribs nipped and marked.
Nope, nope, and nope.
It was tender, tentative. Filled with wonder. They whispered shared secrets. They floated and touched the sky together. Drifted back to Earth together.
What about this? Here? Now? Is this okay? More? My turn, let me take care of you. Want this. Want you.
They murmured nonsense, lost the power of speech. Sighs, hiccupped breaths, and the sign language of trembling fingertips tracing the intricate nets of muscles and patterns of bones.
Took turns. Catching each other, again, and again.
-----
The bunker was quiet; the storm had dumped three feet of snow with wind-churned drifts of six feet high and more. Outside, Smith County was locked down north to the Nebraska border and beyond to the River Road. No runs to the liquor store, gas station, or post office for the foreseeable future.
More importantly, no visits to the Lebanon Café for those 24-ingredient chopped Mediterranean salads that Sammy adored. Or Dean’s favorite deli sandwiches: sliced dark rye cushioning slabs of hand-sliced roast beef and Black Diamond cheddar, slathered in mustard and beet horseradish. One sandwich was lunch and dinner with a bite left over for a supper movie snack.
And then there was the Café’s version of the Pie of the Day, served in deep, thick-walled ceramic bowls glazed red and gold. Topped off with buttery crusts, spicy nut crumbles, or clouds of whipped egg white and cream. Whatever suited the elusive fancy of the resident, temperamental pastry chef. He was bitter and reclusive, a failed novelist with a locked drawer of 23 unpublished manuscripts and countless rejection letters. But the man could bake.
Dean would enter the Café, smile and nod at the people he knew, and settle in the brothers’ favorite booth by the front window. Always reserved for the town’s best-known Hunters.
He would fold his hands in his lap, close his eyes, and wait.
The owner, Irena Blathis, an elderly woman with amber eyes, a coronet of snow-white braids, and an accent born within a brisk walk of the Baltic Sea, would approach unbidden, balancing a tray one-handed. She’d place the day’s pie special, nestled in its signature bowl, on the woven mat in front of Dean. Then, a fork and spoon and knife rolled in a clean napkin, to the right, at the ready.
Finally, she would position a smaller ancillary bowl to the left of the place setting: a side of homemade ice cream, warm custard sauce, salty toasted pecans, or even hot fudge.
Dean would lean forward, eyes still closed, and inhale deeply. He would guess out loud, then open his eyes. Right every time. Chocolate hazelnut crème with toasted meringue, sour cherry with hand-churned amaretto ice cream, pumpkin custard in a candied walnut crust, or Colorado peach cobbler with a raspberry coulis.
The Hunter would be worshipping at the Café’s pie altar every day if he could. But, when he ripped a seam on his heretofore indestructible Wranglers® during a battle with an ironically hungry werewolf, Dean realized that the legendary Winchester metabolism was slowing down. Pie Day was downgraded to a weekly celebration.
-----
Coffee brewing in the Bunker’s ancient steampunk coffee machine. Bacon crisping and potatoes and eggs sizzling in butter in seasoned iron skillets. They beckoned. Dean tunneled out of a mess of blankets where he had cocooned himself during the night. He rolled over and smiled at the folded blanket and fluffed pillow on the other side of the memory foam.
Actually, he couldn’t stop smiling, like the dogs in those rescue videos Sammy and Castiel loved to binge on. Clips of filthy, starved animals, sick and afraid, transformed after weeks of unconditional love. They land in forever homes with adoring humans who don’t appear to have gainful employment except to provide endless belly rubs and treats and trips to nearby beaches or dog parks. The adopted furries zoom around house and yard with a pack of happy canine siblings, all rescued from Puppy Perdition.
Every dog is laughing.
Dean knew how they felt.
He patted his memory foam with affection. Thinking about last night made him feel giddy.
“A lot to remember, huh,” he said out loud, and Dean-like, chuckled at his Dad joke.
-----
Okay, so Dean had said yes, 36 hours earlier, and some people would have counted it as one long date. But not Dean. He parsed it into four events. Four dates.
First date: Yesterday’s epic breakfast. Pretty awesome. [See Permission.]
Dean wanted to woo Sam, overlooking the fact that Sam had spent the last ten years in active pursuit, and preliminary woo already had been executed. And last night, woo had been launched and woo terminus reached, several times.
Nonetheless, Dean intended to keep wooing his best boy for many years. And nothing said woo in the Deanverse® better than a great meal. Or almost nothing. Yep, a little giddy.
Second date: Yesterday afternoon. The original plan was to meet at seven for dinner in the kitchen and then stroll down the hall for a laptop movie night on Sam’s bed, which, although lacking memory foam (need to fix that ASAP), was big enough for a Balthazar twelvesome.
Instead, they had drifted into the Dean Cave® after their breakfast hug and tangled up under a shared blanket on one of the oversized recliners.
The day was spent not watching an endless loop of Clint Eastwood Westerns with the sound set to “Don’t wake the baby”. Instead, Dean and Sam slow-danced horizontally for hours, trading the softest of G-rated kisses. Their hands, by tacit agreement, were sequestered above their waists. Took turns raiding the Bunker pantry and kitchen during intermissions. Hastily assembled snacks of sliced bread folded around dollops of peanut butter, dry breakfast cereal straight from the box, milk straight from the carton, and canned beans and corn spooned a la carte.
Didn’t need beers. Both Hunters already were tipsy, like maiden aunts sipping champagne at a beloved nephew’s lavish wedding.
Dean, after resisting for 20 years, now wanted his first time to last, and Sam apparently agreed. Mutual woo at the speed of cold molasses.
“This is good. We have time,” Sam whispered in Dean’s ear.
Then pulling themselves apart, the soul bond stretching like warm taffy, Dean headed to the kitchen and Sam to the showers.
Third date: An iconic Winchester dinner.
“I’ve made us something light,” said Dean, which meant canned tomato rice soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.
Once he sat down, he found his bowl of soup mesmerizing, unable to look up or speak.
Sam, on the other hand, seemed to have acquired all of the confidence that Dean had misplaced. Told stories from their childhood, where Dean always was his hero.
Chattered away like that seven-year-old boy who saw the world with fresh eyes. Poked a few shy smiles from his big brother with the images from shared memories his words ‘chanted into thin air, like a magician coaxing rabbits and doves from a top hat.
Then, Sam stood up, took his brother’s hand, pulled him to his feet, and led him into Dean’s room. Calm and sure and grinning to bust.
Fourth date: Last night, in Dean’s room. Acknowledging everything that Dean had tried to deny since that day when he woke up with a spindly 12-year-old Sammy in his arms and, realizing he was doomed, threw his brother out of bed and resisted his pleas for a decade.
The first time.
And then the first real kiss, and everything that followed.
[See The Deep Blue Sea]
Best night of his life.
So, this would be Date Five. Needed to up his game.
-----
Bathroom and shower and a shave. Brushing his teeth with Sam’s strawberry gel toothpaste and a quick rinse and gargle with the matching mouthwash. Not hurrying, but with the same focused efficiency he would have used to prep their arsenal while a pack of powered-up Black Dogs cacophonied at the door, with Bobby spitting hurry-up bullets at him for peering down the blue-steel barrel of his favorite witch-killing gun one more time.
Spent a full ninety-eight seconds on his wardrobe. Rejected ironic t-shirts and comfy pjs for the pretty nice ivory oxford button-down he wore to Alex’s graduation from nursing school (a gift from Charlie), a dark green crew neck sweater last worn for a case during a chilly Chicago winter (a gift from Jody), and his best charcoal gray FBI suit pants, from a Walmart clearance sale. Soft deerskin slippers, (a Hanukah gift from comfort-loving Rufus) instead of those heavy boots permanently stained in monster viscera.
There was an unopened black bottle of something expensive on his dresser. In a wobbly speech at their last Thanksgiving celebration, Charlie handed each brother a bottle of what she said was the best men’s cologne on the planet.
Sam wore it on occasion. It smelled a little like pie, a little like the best kind of white magic spells. (Hunter footnote: Sanskrit incantations can trigger rare agarwood, the key ingredient in the cologne.) Heads would turn towards the tall Hunter as he walked into a crowded bar. People sniffing the air, noses up, like prey in a wildlife documentary, seeking the location of the silent predator.
Just a dab, then a little gel. Understated. Don’t want to try too hard. Don’t have to.
-----
Dean paused in the hallway outside what Sam called the Great Room of the Bunker. Even without windows, the hidden lights seemed to know it was the dead of winter and cast snow-blue shadows over the bookcases and across the mid-century electronic panels. Dean took a steadying breath and followed his nose to the kitchen. Stopped at the threshold as if he was about to board a ship to an unknown destination.
-----
A pale green linen tablecloth, draped across the kitchen table, probably from the same storeroom Dean had raided the morning before. Two settings, a rainbow of Fiestaware plates and bowls like a grown-up’s version of a kid’s birthday party, with cream-colored linen napkins. Twin glasses filled with apple juice, a dinner plate stacked with buttered toast, opened jars of jam, salt and pepper, and a bottle of Dean’s favorite hot sauce. A deep green covered butter dish. A small pitcher of milk and a matching bowl of Sam's not-so-secret horde of organic raw sugar cubes.
Sam was facing the stove. White oxford shirt, a pinstriped apron, and black slacks. Broad shoulders tapering to a slender waist, long legs. Chestnut locks curled just below the collar. The same outfit Sam had worn when he went undercover at an Italian restaurant in Boca Raton, Florida, searching for a cursed artifact that had been stolen from a nearby university’s special collection. (Also, an excuse for Dean to wear a Hawaiian shirt and spend the day at the beach.)
Dean sat down at the table, in the chair nearest the door, angled so he could keep an eye open for unexpected visitors. He cleared his throat, an exaggerated cough. It felt like the first time he wore an ill-fitting suit to con a small-town police officer.
Sam stirred something, clicked off a burner, and turned from the stove–probably knew his brother had arrived minutes before with his enhanced Hunter hearing, despite the soft slippers. (Or the scent of the very good cologne.) Rewarded Dean with a dazzling smile. Damn, those dimples. Those eyes. Sam grabbed a big cup, azure blue, filled it with the freshly brewed coffee, and walked over, still smiling, and placed it on the table. Stepped back and returned to the stove.
Dean cradled it in both hands. Took a sip. Obviously from the stash that they tapped for special occasions, like visits from Bobby or Missouri, or from appreciative supernatural entities. Garth and Bennie liked good java. Strong and smooth.
“Morning. Nice place you got here,” said Dean.
“My grandfather Henry left it to my brother and me," said Sam without turning around. Responding to his cue, just like during one of their improvised FBI scripts.
"He was in army intelligence. Abandoned by the government; he bought it for a song.”
“You live here alone?” asked Dean, as he slathered a piece of toast with strawberry jam.
“No,” said Sam. “I live with my brother. He’s on the road right now.”
“What's he do?” asked Dean, after inhaling the toast and reaching for another.
He seemed to have worked up an appetite and was genuinely interested in the answer.
Sam didn’t miss a beat while layering the bacon between sheets of paper towel and giving the hash browns a quick stir.
“My brother was a soldier in the day. Special forces. Bravest man I know. Top secret, sort of followed our father’s and grandfathers’ military legacies. But he retired from that life a while back. Travels some. Fixes up classic American cars for rich guys and does free work for folks that need help the most. He’s my superhero, like Batman.”
Dean was beaming. Drank his coffee and savored the moment.
Sam quickly plated the bacon, scrambled eggs, and hash browns and brought them to the table, then poured himself a cup of joe, and sat down. Dosed it with the sugar and milk. Took a sip. Smiled in satisfaction.
"And, how about you?" asked Sam. "I'm sorry, forgot your name."
"Dean," he said. Sam nodded.
"I remember now," said Sam. "Sorry, I was distracted."
Dean blushed. Grabbed his glass of apple juice and chugged it. Wiped his mouth on his linen napkin and cleared his throat. Sam waited expectantly.
"It’s a coincidence," said Dean. "Live with my bro, too. My little brother. The smartest and the kindest man I know."
(Sam's turn to blush. Took a big bite of toast and jam.)
"He used to be a big deal lawyer but gave it up to help folks who need help the most. Sort of like a superhero, like Superman. His secret identity? Mild-mannered librarian."
"We should dig in," stammered Sam. They ate in silence, except to ask to pass the pepper sauce or offer each other another cup of coffee.
"So," Dean said, "How about a tour? It’s kind of creepy here. You don’t have ghosts, do you? I’m afraid of ghosts. And goblins."
"No goblins," said Sam. "But it has been haunted from time to time."
Dean stood up, empty plate and glass in hand, and brought them to the sink. Turned around and found himself in Sam's arms. They hugged, and Sam stepped back far enough to comfortably initiate a long, sweet kiss.
"Leave them," Sam whispered in his ear when they both broke for air.
"Where shall we start? Are you taking me on an adventure?" asked Dean, grinning, perfect white teeth gleaming, like one of those happy happy rescue pups.
"Come with me," said Sam, and clasping his hand, led him out of the kitchen and back to the Promised Land.