Dean had this memory of a lazy afternoon the summer before Stanford, one he would never forget. Just him and Sam. Together. And happy.
Once he’d figured out that they were reliving the past - back in heaven, that is - there was a part of Dean that had hoped he and Sam would stumble upon that memory. If it weren’t for that ass-clown Zachariah on their asses, Dean might’ve had the chance. Not that it would’ve mattered, really; he’d played the memory often enough to know every last detail.
When Sam had gone off to college, Dean had missed him terribly, and not just because his brother had ditched the family business. His soulmate would be gone.Yeah, soulmate. Dean didn’t use the term lightly, never really said it out loud or even cared for the word much at all, but it was the only way to describe the thing between them. They had a shared space in heaven, after all, though Dean had known the truth of it much sooner.
On that fateful afternoon, Dean had taken Sam fishing out by the lake one last time. Like any good brother, Dean had taken he initiative and thrown worms into Sam’s hair. Sam had returned the favor, of course, by dumping a hefty bucket of water right over his head. That had been the tipping point - quite literally, in fact - because Dean couldn’t help but escalate by throwing Sam clear over the canoe before jumping in himself.
When the two had finally tired themselves out, they’d returned to shore to dry off, stripping out of their sopping wet clothes to lay bare in the sun, spread out on the dock like an eagle in flight.
Maybe it was the summer heat or the adrenaline that was causing it, but when he’d turned to Sam, ready to make some smart remark, Dean saw more than just a dopey-eyed goofball of a brother laying there beside him. He saw… a man. And something just clicked.
His.
Dean still isn’t sure how it happened, exactly, what it was that compelled him in that moment, consequences be damned, to roll himself onto his brother and kiss him. Kiss him, of all things. But God, was he glad he did.
Sam had caught him in his arms as he dove in, rolled easy into the wave, mouth molding so perfectly with his. Dean was the one who’d been caught by surprise, struck dumb by how good Sam was. He thought he had the edge experience-wise, but maybe he’d been mistaken. Or maybe Sam was just a natural. Or, you know, the other explanation. In any case, Dean was lost in it, this, the soft and hungry little kisses with ever more adventurous teeth and tongues.
By the time they were done, Dean was breathless, panting hard against flushed out cheeks, He remembers, so distinctly, the look of his brother’s eyes then- darkened to the edges but somehow still pure, golden, reflected light drawing Dean down into its depths, into him.
And Dean let him. Let Sam bury his head against his chest as he clutched at soft brown hair, let him trace the dip at the arch of his spine, let him lick softly at the soft expanses of his skin. Let him because he was Sam, his Sam, and nothing - not their father, not the hunt, and certainly not Stanford - would change that.
It was just them, Dean and Sam, two brothers. Together. Just how it had been, how it would always be.
And that was Dean’s best memory.
(A/N: References to 5.16, the episode where they go to heaven and they sort of hint that the brothers are ‘soulmates’ being that they share a space in heaven.)