#jensen's soppy romance song came on spotify as i finished this

[zmediaoutlet]

Happy Wincest Wednesday! As today is my wedding anniversary, maybe a little low-key anniversary celebration for Sam and Dean?

Dean comes back to the motel room with six pack of beer -- standard -- and a bag of takeout chinese -- standard, and hopefully he actually ordered the ma po tofu even if he was making fun of it, because Sam's seriously been having a craving -- and a tiny, palm-sized teddy bear, which Sam only discovers when Dean says think fast and chucks it at his face, and Sam does catch it but barely, and then holds it in both hands, baffled. It's purple, soft, and wildly cheap. Probably made by the million in China, somewhere. "What the hell," he says.

"C'mon, baby," Dean says, sugary, which makes Sam look back up at him, horrified. "Can't a guy do something nice for his best girl?"

"Uh," Sam says, "no?", but luckily Dean's expression cracks and he grins more naturally. He cracks a beer and then a second, and leans his hip on the table next to Sam's laptop, and Sam looks back down at the bear, wondering if it's -- cursed, or something. Probably not but, then again, Dean calling him his best girl. Something cursed is happening here.

"Had 'em at the register at the Circle K," Dean says. "Along with those, you know, little roses in the crack pipes? Blast from the past. Think it's prom around here, soon, or something."

The bear's got little black bead eyes and a vinyl triangle patch of nose, which has been sewed on crooked. On one foot, Sam sees, there's a red silky heart, which Sam touches with a thumb, and then looks up at his brother.

"Know where we are?" Dean says.

"I would've said Earth, but--" Sam says, and holds up the bear, raising his eyebrows in a way that should get Dean to spill, but Dean's actually waiting for an answer, his mouth still tugged up soft at the corner. Sam drops his hand, holding the bear in his lap, thinking. "Uh, California. Off the 5, Bakersfield, the Pearl Motel--"

"Bakersfield," Dean says, and finally hands Sam his beer. "About... hell, fifteen years ago now. I think that's right."

Fifteen years ago? That was... when Dean was going to hell. Dean with a deal dragging him down, and the darkness roaring up. They did come to Bakersfield, Sam remembers, finally. A hunt, while he was trying to come up with anything that'd fix it, and Dean hadn't been happy exactly but he hadn't been lying anymore and that was something. Sam sets the teddy on his laptop -- it's badly balanced and tips over, ear bonking gently against the spacebar -- and Dean gets his boot between Sam's ankles, swivels the desk chair so Sam's really facing him. Not really smiling anymore but his eyes still soft. "This is where we were when I decided to believe you," Dean says. Sam sits up straight. "Even if you were nuts. I don't know. I just -- believed you. How you wanted to fix it and I thought maybe you could. I don't know if I ever said thank you for that."

"I was wrong," Sam says, a sorry acid curving through his gut, but Dean shakes his head, says, "All's well that ends well, Sammy," and that's a pretty lackadaisical way to dismiss being murdered by demons and destiny but Dean lifts a shoulder, glances around at the motel room where they're safe, alive, together.

"Bakersfield, huh," Sam says. He remembers more, now. A -- ghost, it was. And they burned the bones, and Sam almost got his arm torn off but didn't, and when they got back to that other motel all those years ago --

Dean's grinning at him, now. "Remember?" he says, and Sam does, in growing and delightful detail that somehow hasn't been blotted out by all the years between that night and this one, all the times Dean's spread his legs or Sam's gotten on his knees or the hurried grasping in tight dark corners or how sometimes Dean will look at him and Sam can't, physically, do any other thing but step close and get Dean's face between his palms and lean down, press his lips against where Dean's smiling, because he can't come up with any other way to say what it means -- what it has always meant, even when times bad or were awful or were just -- what they had to be, for them to both get to the next time that could be better.

"I didn't get you anything," Sam says.

Dean tips the teddy back over, so its little red-hearted foot is pointing Sam's way, and then reaches out to clink their beers together. "No big, Sammy," he says, and he's still grinning but his ears are turning that telltale red. "I'm sure you'll think of something."