Title: We Are But Not The Same

Summary: "Maybe the other Dean's right, maybe we should all live here together." AU Coda to 15x13 "Destiny's Child". Brotherly Feels.

Warnings: Spoilers up to and including 15x13. Rated T for bad language, past emotional trauma, past losses and character deaths, mentions of alcoholism and mild graphic injury.

Disclaimer: I don't own the art (credits go to Blakravell on DevientArt) or the show or the characters.

"A sibling may be the keeper of one's identity, the only person with the keys to one's unfettered, more fundamental self." – Marian Sandmaier

oooooOOOOooooo

The knock on the bunker's door snapped Dean's head up in surprise.

He was well on his way to the bunker's garage to check whether Baby was okay after whatever these second-hand imposters had done to her, when the metallic echo stopped him in his tracks.

"Oh, c'mon." Rolling his eyes, Dean willed the noise to go away.

The second knock was louder and faster this time. "We know you're in there! Open up." The other Dean hit the bunker's door with all his strength this time, rattling the steel front in its rusty hinges from outside.

With a defeated sigh, Dean turned back toward the mapping room and trudged up the stairs before roughly yanking the heavily warded steel door open. "What?" he growled. "What the hell do you—"

Dean's mouth snapped shut mid-sentence at the sight that greeted him.

Their doppelgangers from the alternative reality stood there, Dean awkwardly propping up his brother against himself with one of Sam's arms slung around his neck for support. Manbun-Sam was coated in blood, his T-shirt, jacket and jeans all stained with crimson splotches as he pressed what looked like a balled up wad of tissue against his face.

"What the…?" Dean blinked at them, unable to fully wrap his head around what he was seeing. "Are you hurt? What the hell happened?"

Ignoring Dean's questions, the other Dean readjusted his grip around Sam's arm before he carried his brother across the doorstep and back inside the bunker. Dean just stood there, dumbfounded as he watched the brothers' descent down the stairs, unable to keep them from making themselves comfortable their home like the sneaky little coo-coos they were. "He gets bad nosebleeds sometimes. Like usually if he's stressed or… if the air's too dry or something."

Realizing it was too late to stop them now, Dean shut the bunker's door and blinked again, still not quite able to process what was happening.

He followed their doppelgangers down the stairs and eyed the two men critically. He looked at Sam, who now sat slumped forward in one of the chairs, his nose plastered to a scratchy-looking paper towel and Dean – the imposter Dean – standing beside him like some sort of guardian angel. The older brother crouched down at Sam's feet, checking his brother's face for signs of discomfort and it was such a big-brother move that it quieted the more rebellious parts of Dean's mind, made him realize that maybe… for all their differences, they weren't so different after all.

"You mean that all of – this – is from your nose?" Dean gestured vaguely at the mess on Sam's shirt and trousers. And Jesus Christ, there was a lot of blood. Dean looked at the soaked paper towel in Sam's shaking hands and wondered if maybe they were dealing with a hex bag instead. Or a broken nose. Or an aneurism. He vaguely wondered if it was possible to die from a nosebleed and then discarded the thought just as quickly. Other-worldly or not, Dean would be damned if any version of his little brother – yes even with the atrocity he called hair – would bleed out under his watch.

"Yeah." Not-Dean answered without glancing up. "Told you they get bad."

The other Dean swiped a hand across his brother's forehead, brushing his choppy bangs away. It was a small gesture, a minor thing to notice amidst the craziness of it all, but Dean felt his insides clench none-the-less with a strange sense of compassion. Something inside of him softened at the sight of the non-verbal communication between the brothers, a gentle touch of Dean's fingers to Sam's neck, a reassured squeeze of Sam's blood-smudged fingers against Dean's arm. Dean even did the test – follow my fingers with your eyes, there that's it – how many am I holding up? and despite all their differences, Dean felt a sudden familiarity there, a connection that couldn't be denied. These two might be complete opposites of them, but their brotherly bond was strong and that was oddly comforting to know. It was reassuring to know that the reality these look-alikes had sprung from was still a world where he and Sam got along. Not like the Djinn's dream world where Sam and he hadn't even been on speaking terms, or the crazy Hollywood reality where Sam and he hadn't even been brothers. No, from the concerned look on Not-Dean's face to the way he tried to shield Sam from Dean's watchful eyes in a moment of vulnerability, these were all surefire big-brother moves. Dean would know. He had perfected them, after all.

Unsure of what to do, Dean shuffled his feet somewhat awkwardly beside them.

"Well that, uh… sucks," he replied drily, at a loss for better words.

"Dean!" Sam's voice suddenly came from the doorway, making all three of them look up. His brother – his own, non-bleeding, and not-in-any-way-or-form-hurt – brother was suddenly by his side and yeah, Dean couldn't deny how good that felt, to see Sam with a healthy flush on his cheeks and without gallons of blood decorating his clothes. "What happened? Are you okay?" Sam asked, eyebrows bunched together in worry as he rounded the mapping table.

"Just a nosebleed." Not-Sam pulled the tissue back with shaking hands and a fresh wave of bright crimson ran from his nostrils, causing Dean to wince in sympathy. "I'm kinda used to it," Not-Sam said with a shrug as though looking like the walking dead wasn't a big deal or anything…

"Yeah, well I'm not." Not-Dean retorted with a snort. He looked over at Sam and Dean beseechingly and Dean recognized a flash of the old-familiar protectiveness he himself felt every goddamn time when his little brother got hurt. It was something he could relate to, something he understood better than anyone else in the world, so he knew what the other Dean was about to ask for before the guy opened his mouth. "Can you get me a towel or something? To stem the worst of the flow?"

And while the Dean from ten minutes ago would have probably told this guy to stick it where the sun don't shine, the Dean from now found himself oddly compliant with the request. Suddenly the two men in front of him were more than two flamboyant versions of themselves from a different reality. They were brothers – a little brother who was hurt and an older one who had a job to do and Dean had enough good sense to know that this wasn't the time or place to be an asshole about it. He didn't want to find out what Not-Dean was capable of where his little brother's health and safety was concerned. So he merely gave a nod in understanding.

"Alright," he said, putting himself in motion. He was surprised to find his own hand clapping down amicably against Not-Sam's slumped shoulders in bypassing. "I'll be right back. You keep pressure on that nose, okay?"

Not waiting for a response, Dean made his way down the hallway to their bathroom. He located their stack of towels next to the wash basin and pulled the fluffiest-looking towel from the bunch. He then grabbed one of the drinking glasses from the sink next to the tooth paste and filled it to the brim with water before hurrying back to the mapping room and holding the towel out for Not-Sam.

"Here," he said in a subdued voice because he remembered that his Sam would sometimes get nosebleeds like this as a teenager and they would always be accompanied by a pretty bad migraine.

"You feeling okay?" Sam asked his bleeding doppelganger, his voice low and gentle as though he too, remembered the headaches he used to have as a teenager, the ones that would leave him huddled in a small ball beneath a blanket, trying to block out all noise and light with his eyes squeezed shut against a world of pain.

"Yeah," Not-Sam's voice was now muffled by the towel. "Just gibbe a mibute or two and I'll be bine."

"You take as much time as you need," Not-Dean assured his brother and then sent a very decisive, 'try-to-make-us-leave, I-fucking-dare-you'- look over his shoulder at Dean, who had made it very clear just a few minutes ago that they weren't welcome in the bunker. From the looks of it, Not-Dean wouldn't allow for him or his brother to be thrown out a second time, not with Sam being this pale and shaky.

A beat of tension-filled silence passed between them and then Not-Sam slowly lowered the towel he had kept pressed to his face. The bleeding was already slowing down, but Not-Sam still looked like he was going to collapse if he even so much as attempted to stand. "No, Dean… we need to get going… Besides, I'm pretty sure these guys have better things to do than to watch me bleed all over their interior." As if in afterthought, Not-Sam sent a brief glance around at the meager looking decor in the mapping room and wrinkled his nose in something akin to disgust. "I mean, it's not exactly the Ritz or anything, but even so…"

"We're not leaving. Not with you looking like you're about to keel over."

"I'm a grown adult, Dean. There's nothing to worry about."

"Yeah, except for the fact that you randomly start squirting blood sometimes."

"I'm fine!"

Not-Dean opened his mouth for a comeback but Dean beat him to it. "Guys," he said in a warning tone, and both of them glanced up at him as though they only just remembered they had an audience. It was funny to watch. How to people could be so wrapped up in each other that they forgot everyone and everything around them… Dean wondered if he and Sam acted the same way. If their friends and family members sometimes had moments like this, where they just watched the two of them bicker or joke around or simply converse and felt like a third wheel – like an intruder spying on something that wasn't meant for them.

"You know, I think my brother's right." With a bit of a flustered look, Not-Dean rose back to his feet, maybe a bit too quickly as he clutched one of the backrests of a close-by chair for support after. Then he turned around facing them and gesturing vaguely back at Not-Sam. "We should probably move this to a hotel or something. Thanks for…" he gestured toward the now bloodied towel that lay discarded on the mapping table and cleared his voice, leaving the sentence unfinished.

"Don't mention it." Dean answered for them. It didn't go unnoticed that Not-Dean had said 'hotel' and not motel because they – apparently – were used to a higher standard where accommodation was concerned.

"Of course," Sam pitched in from right beside him. "Hey, uh, listen—" he started and Dean blinked over at his brother from the side, watching him as he worked out what he wanted to say. He looked unsure, probably because he and Dean had other things to worry about right now. Like defeating god. And taking care of an emotionally-insecure and extremely sensitive teenager who had just had his soul restored after months without it. But from the way Sam's eyes lingered on Not-Sam's blood coated clothes and the scary pallor of his skin, it was clear where his thoughts were headed and Dean couldn't say he disagreed.

"What is it?" Not-Dean prompted, throwing another glance back over his shoulder at his younger brother. And Dean felt something uncurl inside of him, something that had been clenched tight with skepticism and disapproval ever since these two whackos had showed up in a Mini-Cooper a couple of days ago.

"You two should stay the night," Sam eventually offered to them with an encouraging smile.

And yeah, even if Dean wanted to protest at the thought of spending another day with these two, he and Sam both knew that there was a snowball's chance in hell of Dean allowing for Not-Sam to leave in the condition he was in. He just… didn't have it in himself to watch any version of his little brother hurt. Even if this version looked like he was the third act of the Sigfried and Roy show in Las Vegas.

"Listen guys, that's a nice offer, but—" Not-Dean started protesting.

"But nothing," Dean cut his double off with a hard edge in his voice. "There's no hotel anywhere nearby for the next fifty miles and even if you made it that far in the condition you're in, it's probably not a smart idea walking around looking like Carrie after Prom night. Especially not in Lebanon where people know us."

"Afraid we're gonna ruin your reputation?" Not-Dean asked with a testing quirk of his lips.

"Yeah. Yeah, I really am," Dean wholeheartedly agreed, eyeing his doppelganger from head-to-toe with a disgusted look on his face. It was bad enough that the two had the fashion sense of a blind bat, but apart from that Sam and he really couldn't risk for their doppelgangers to get themselves tangled up with the local cops for running around town looking like serial killers. They had worked too hard to feel home – not only in the bunker – but as a part of the local community to lose the comforts of their new home in Lebanon because of these two idiots.

Sam seemed to agree with him. "Listen, guys. There's a couple of unused rooms in the bunker and considering how much blood you lost… it's probably best if you stay."

"Alright," Not-Dean agreed. "Yeah, fine."

"Fine," Sam echoed with a genuine smile. He glanced over at the hallway that led to the kitchen and gestured toward it with a sheepish look on his face. "Do you guys, uh… do you want dinner?"

It wasn't what Dean expected and from the way Not-Dean exchanged a glance with Not-Sam, it wasn't what either of the brothers had expected either. But that was Sam Winchester for you. Offering to not only share his home with others, but his food to. The damn kid would give a stranger the shirt of his back to keep him warm. But that was alright. Dean had long since come to accept that his little brother's heart was big enough to fit the whole wide world in it.

Deciding that they might as well make the most of the situation, Dean just rolled with Sam's suggestion. "We can order in. Get a few Pizzas or you know… whatever you guys feel like."

Not-Sam grinned in a way that wasn't at all disturbing with all that blood smeared across his face. Shit was going to haunt Dean in his dreams until his dying day, so much was for sure…

"So it's a Club after all!" Not-Sam cheered, apparently feeling a little better already.

Playing along with his brother's theatrics, Not-Dean spread his arms out in the air theatrically. "The magical, adventures of Sam and Dean, and Sam and Dean!"

"The Whimsical, Wacky, Wondrous World of Winchesters," Not-Sam suggested with a laugh that had Dean's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline.

Sam and Dean just stood there in bewilderment, unconsciously mirroring each other. Out of the two of them, Sam was the first to recover. "Right," he said with a pinched look on his face and Dean wasn't quite sure if Sam was holding back a smile or if he was close to tears of despair. He knew which of the two options he'd choose. "I'm gonna go get us something to eat."

Sam turned toward the staircase and Dean followed suit, suddenly having absolutely no desire – whatsoever – to spend one second of his precious time next to these two lunatics. Especially not by himself.

"Do they have Sushi in this town?" Not-Sam called after them, just as they trudged up the bunker's stairs to the exit.

Dean shot Sam 'the look'.

"I hope you know that this is 100% on you," Dean hissed, just low enough under his breath to keep the conversation between the two of them. "Freaking sushi, Sam!"

"Yeah, yeah," Sam grumbled, smiling as he pulled the bunker's door open with a screech. "Let's just somehow get through the night, okay?"

Dean pointed a finger at Sam's face just as they stepped outside. "Fair enough. But if there's one goddamn scratch on my car, they're dead, Sam. I freaking mean it."

"Agreed." Sam chuckled, lightly shoving Dean's shoulder as they made their way to the Impala.

After all, 'The Whimsical, Wacky, Wondrous World of Winchesters' didn't specify how many Winchesters it included.

oooooOOOOooooo

As it turned out, there was a lot to said about the world Not-Sam and Not-Dean had come from.

"What do you mean—" cough-cough, "m—" cough-cough "'married'?" Dean damn near choked on his food, while Sam frantically patted his brother's shoulder. He couldn't have possibly understood Not-Dean correctly. No freaking way… no way in hell were these two ridiculous versions of them married to flesh-and-blood women or men or whatever the hell they were into in the other reality. It just defied all logical thought and reason…

"You alright, there, buddy?" Not-Sam asked him with a frown and now that the kid was no longer bleeding all over himself and the bunker's interior… now that he was no longer wearing more of his blood on the outside than on the inside, it was a lot easier for Dean to shoot the kid a glower for being back to his arrogant, bitchy ways.

"No I'm not alright," Dean snapped, shoving his half-finished slice of pizza aside with an angry huff. "I thought you guys were living from Daddy's trust fund. I thought you were hunting monsters on a global scale. There's no way for you two to have loving wives at home with that kinda lifestyle."

Not-Sam and Not-Dean exchanged a smug look with each other. "There is if you're married to other hunters. See, our wives… they kind of understand the lifestyle. One could say they even support it."

"Oh, yeah?" Sam asked with a skeptical frown.

"Here," Not-Dean said, pulling something from the inside of his pocket. He unfolded a crinkled-looking piece of photograph and slid it across the library table toward his look-alike.

Dean snatched the picture from the table top and then dropped it again as if burned by the touch.

All the blood drained from his face in one go and he suddenly felt dizzy, sick even.

The world kinda swam in and out of focus for a moment and it only steadied again to the sound of Sam's voice and steadying touch of his brother's hands on his neck and shoulder. "—ean, Dean!" Sam shook him. "Hey, what—"

"I'm gonna go catch some fresh air."

Dean was up and out of the bunker in one minute flat, leaving three very startled members of 'The Whimsical, Wacky, Wondrous World of Winchesters' behind to stare after him.

Sam blinked and then looked down at the picture the other Dean had handed them.

He picked it up with a sinking suspicion and he sure as hell wasn't disappointed.

Jo looked beautiful on the photograph. Older, more mature, her hair cascading down her narrow shoulders in a tumble of blond locks, her smile wide and with her arms interlocked behind Dean's neck in a loving but playful embrace. A lover's embrace. And there… on the ground between them was a little girl with dollar-green eyes and a gap-toothed grin that looked so much like Dean that it caused Sam's heart to still in his chest. This was a life that his Dean never got to live, hell it was a life – a happiness - he never even got to consider for himself, and here these other versions of them were sitting with their expensive clothes and their own freaking company and their own private jet – and with a family. A real, honest-to-god family consisting of their parents and loving wives and kids.

Sam swallowed, suddenly feeling a deep sting in his heart. It took him two tries before he got his voice back to working properly. "You uh… you have a daughter."

"She's the joy of my life," Not-Dean said and then sent a glance back to the mapping room, where Dean had run off to in a huff just a few minutes ago. "Your brother… is he—"

"He's fine," Sam lied. "He just- this is a parallel universe so… our lives, as you can see, didn't exactly turn out the same way."

"He knows her," Not-Dean guessed in a somber voice. "My wife. Joanna."

For a second, Sam contemplated telling him. But then he decided not to… bad enough for these guys to be stuck in an alternative universe while their own world, including everyone who lived on it was eradicated. There was no sense adding to the burden by telling them about Jo's fate in their own timeline. Which come to think of it… Sam frowned.

"Your wife and kid… aren't they—" Sam cut himself off, unsure of how to ask. "I mean your world is gone, right? Are they—"

"Like we mentioned before," Not-Sam cut in from the side. "We all got separated on our way here. Travelling through time or space, it can happen sometimes…."

"Our father's probably with them," Dean supplied. "And even if he's not… they can take care of themselves. Isn't that right, Sammy?"

"Sure can," Not-Sam grinned and Sam was tempted – for just a second – to ask him about his wife, to see a picture of his own sons or daughters and to find out who he ended up with in the other world. Was Jessica still alive? Was he with Eileen? Sam swallowed and crushed the urge to satisfy his curiosity.

It was bad enough for Dean to mourn the 'could-have's and 'should-have's of another lifetime. No sense in adding to the devastation. One broken heart per night was enough. They'd share the hurt between the two of them, mourn an old friend together, mourn the not-birth of their potential children together, shed a few tears over those they had lost hidden from one another's sight but still in silent solidarity and never talk about it again when all was said and done.

Sam briefly contemplated going after Dean, consoling him, comforting him. But then he quickly discarded the idea, realizing that Dean probably needed some time by himself to rein his emotions in after what had just happened. Dean always took some time to steel himself after emotional blows like this one before he was ready to talk. And sometimes, when emotions became too raw, when old wounds were reopened too viciously, he didn't want to talk at all. Sam had a feeling, despite all their sacrifices and losses, Ellen and Jo were a particularly nasty can of worms to be reopened. He had never really asked Dean about whether or not he had ever harbored romantic feelings for Jo, but after she died, it wasn't like it truly mattered. The two of them never got a chance to see where their friendship could have led and maybe that was a bigger tragedy than either of them had ever acknowledged. She had died for him that night. And in a sense, Ellen had, too.

Dean would carry that burden to his grave. And he would never stop blaming himself for their deaths. No matter what Sam told him, no matter what Jo's ghost had told him back on that fateful hunt all these years ago. Nobody was better at self-hatred than his brother, Sam knew, and it broke his heart to think about how much this – this reminder of what 'could have been' – must have hurt.

"I'm gonna show you guys your rooms, alright?" Sam eventually said.

Sam got up from the table, his appetite gone.

It was going to be a long night.

oooooOOOOooooo

"It's not much but at least it will be more comfortable than the clothes you're wearing." Sam handed Not-Dean a set of Dean's clothes for the night. His brother had taken the Impala for a ride, probably to take his mind off of things and Sam had used the time to show their look-alikes their respective rooms and get them settled. "I guess we don't have to worry about the size…" Sam said with a weak smile, trying to lighten the mood after his brother's rather dramatic exit during dinner earlier.

"Thanks," Not-Dean said, taking the clothes from him. He had already taken off his shirt and jacket, just standing there in his jeans, barefoot and with his hair ruffled and now that the ridiculous clothes were off, he looked so much like his Dean that Sam had to stand and stare at him for a second.

It didn't hit him at first, maybe because he wasn't unfamiliar to the sight that greeted him, but after a beat Sam's heart suddenly thudded to a halt in his chest at the sight of a dark leather cord hanging from around Not-Dean's neck. It had an old-familiar horned penchant attached to it, glinting dauntingly over at Sam from where it rested comfortably against Not-Dean's chest.

The sight was so unexpected and so painful that it paralyzed him.

And that was weird, because Sam had kept the damn thing for years after Dean had tossed it into that trash bin, had guarded it carefully, cleaned it rigorously until one day, it had started glowing in his pocket, making it's much-needed reappearance. So while Sam had certainly seen the amulet time and time again throughout the years, he couldn't deny that this was… different. This was Dean – or rather, Not-Dean – wearing it. This was his older brother – or a version of him, anyway – wearing the symbol of their brotherhood like he was still proud of it, like he wanted the entire world to know how much their brotherhood meant to him, how much their bond mattered.

Dean had forgiven him a long time ago, Sam knew that.

But he had never worn the amulet again and in a sense, that meant that their bond was not the same. It had broken and been fixed, over and over again, maybe even strengthened over time, but a certain part of what had made them – them – had been lost after their trip to heaven and it was never fully restored.

Lost in his thoughts, Sam didn't even notice he was staring until Not-Dean called him out on it.

"You, uhm… okay, there, kid?"

"Yeah," Sam said a little too quickly, his voice suddenly wavering and Dean was a different Dean, from a different universe, so he really, really shouldn't have noticed, but somehow he did… his expression softening as a frown settled on his forehead.

"You sure?" His brother – not his, not his, not his – asked before pulling Dean's green V-neck over his head. He took a couple of steps forward, closer to Sam, who had a better time breathing now that the amulet was safely hidden away beneath the shirt, no longer taunting him. "You look kinda spooked, there, Sammy."

Sammy.

Dean rarely ever called him Sammy anymore these days.

At first Sam had been happy about it. They were equals nowadays. Partners. But sometimes… sometimes Sam missed the way Dean would fret over him and smother him with affection and brotherly protectiveness. Kinda like this Dean did when Sam had been bleeding all over the bunker earlier tonight. Then again, Sam knew that his Dean would have probably done the same if their roles had been reversed. He scolded himself for being overly dramatic, told himself that this was ridiculous – 'Of course, Dean would have fretted and been protective of you. You know he would have' – but it was kind of hard to remind himself of how much his brother cared about him, when he was reminded of one of the lowest points in their relationship, a time where Sam had really, truly thought that his brother had stopped caring about him. That Dean hated him.

"Hey, man, you alright?" Not-Dean cupped the side of his face, trying to lift his chin and to Sam's utter horror, there were tears in his eyes and he blinked them away almost frantically, pulling out of Not-Dean's hold before the other man could notice.

"Yeah, yeah, fine… it's just," he huffed out a shaky laugh, managing to turn what could have very well been a sob into a chuckle and hoping Not-Dean wouldn't notice. He wanted to say 'it's been a long day' or something equally trivial, but somehow words elude him and tumbled unprompted from his lips. "That's a nice necklace you have."

Dean looked down at himself as though he needed to check and see what Sam was talking about. With his chin dipped low, Dean's eyes found Sam's. "What, this you mean?"

Sam felt about two inches tall, everything inside of him locked tight at the sight of Dean – not-Dean- pulling the necklace's leather cord out from beneath the shirt. The golden penchant – round and horned and perfect – looked more polished than Sam had ever seen it before, unblemished because it probably hadn't been used as an angel-radar for divine power and it probably also hadn't been tossed into a trash bin at any given point.

Not-Dean seemed confused about as to why Sam found this particular jewelry so fascinating. "Dude… it's not all that special. I mean it's not even real gold or anything."

Sam snorted, a real smile tugging on his lips at the absurdity of the statement. Sometimes it was easy to forget that, unlike Dean and him, these two were rich.

"Did…" Sam cleared his throat. "Did your brother give it to you?"

Dean frowned. "No, actually. My uh… my dad did."

"Oh." Sam didn't really know how to process that information. Judging from their interaction out in the mapping room earlier, Sam had kind of assumed that these two were close… closer than your average pair of brothers. Kinda like he and Dean. But then again, they had a loving father who – apparently – really cared for them while growing up and now that he was thinking about it, Sam had actually intended to give the amulet to their dad at first, too…

"You sure you're alright?" Not-Dean asked, probably noticing the wistful expression on Sam's face.

"Yeah, I uh… I'm gonna leave you to it. Holler if you need anything." Sam gave Not-Dean a tight-lipped smile and a semi-awkward wave of his hand before leaving the room.

As soon as he was out in the hallway, safely out of sight and earshot from the other Dean, he pressed his back against the cold tiles of the bunker's hallway, listening to the thunderous beat of his heart and wondering if there were many other versions of them out there… and if maybe, one of the manifold Sams from other worlds had been less of a disappointment for their brother. If maybe, these other galaxy's had versions of them in which Sam never died and Dean never broke the first seal and Sam never drank demon blood and freed Lucifer from hell and in which their brotherhood never got broken beyond full repair.

oooooOOOOooooo

Dean didn't have high hopes to catch any sleep that night.

Not with the events of the day playing on repeat in his mind, over and over and over again until he was emotionally drained and craving Whisky like he craved air to breathe. He didn't drink like he used to drink… not these days, anyway. Just enough to kinda get by… But tonight was a welcome exception to that rule and Dean had made plans to finish the bottle he had broken open by sunrise.

Or at least, that had been the plan until someone chose to interrupt him.

"May I join you?"

Dean's head poked up from where he sat crouched over a book at the library table, one hand comfortably wrapped around his fourth' glass of Whisky for the night.

Not-Sam was standing on the other side of the table, clothed in Sammy's clothes and with his hair no longer tied back in that ridiculous bun. Still, even without the weird phrasing of his words, Dean would have recognized in an instant that this wasn't his Sam, that something about the other man's posture and overall exterior was just…. off.

"Can't sleep?" Dean asked, his voice rough like gravel from lack of use.

He hadn't really caught up with his brother after he had stormed out during dinner. For one thing, because he had returned quite late and hadn't wanted to bother them, and for another because Sam would most likely try to get him to talk about what happened. And after the day they had had, the absolute last thing Dean wanted, was to talk about his feelings.

Unfortunately, – Not-Sam – despite all their obvious differences, had as much of a nag for emotional heart-to-hearts as Dean's Sam did. So the inevitable chick-flic moment was coming, whether Dean liked it or not.

"I uh… I wanted to ask you about this…" Sam produced a book from behind his back and Dean's heart sank when he saw the multi-colored, glossy book cover with the two gun-wielding idiots on the front. He didn't even have to read the title to know what Not-Sam had unintentionally stumbled upon. And, heaven have mercy, could this night get any worse?!

"Is this… what I think it is?" Not-Sam asked and Dean wanted to groan and slam his head down against the table top in utter frustration.

Instead, he quirked an eyebrow at Sam and took a swig from his Whisky. "What do you think it is?"

"I hope to god, it's fiction," Not-Sam said, sounding more serious than Dean had ever heard him before and it was kind of ironic that that made him sound a whole lot more like the Sam Dean knew and loved. "Because that's just… I mean the demon blood a-and going to hell and the freaking Apocalypse. That can't be real, right? It's all just made up, right?" Sam had propped himself up against the table top, towering over Dean almost threateningly now and every fiber of his body was lined with tension. He was visibly upset about this, Dean could tell. And under closer scrutiny, his eyes looked suspiciously puffy and red-rimmed, which meant he was even more of an emotional time-bomb than his actual brother was and he had probably spent the past couple of hours bawling over these damn books.

Dean sighed and closed the book he had been reading, realizing that this was a situation that called for his full attention. He had a brief moment of contemplating whether he should lie about this.

Then he sat his glass of Whisky down on the table with determination. "I guess none of it happened in your world, then?"

"What, you mean me drinking demon blood?" Sam exclaimed with an incredulous look on his face and Dean's hackles rose at the indignant way Not-Sam spoke about this… at the flicker of disgust passing his features as though their life… their life choices were 'beneath' him or something.

"Of course not!" Sam snapped. "I'm not some freak or… or junkie."

"Hey," Dean's voice clawed its way out of the deepest, darkest abyss of his throat. Suddenly he was up from his seat with so much force that he damn near rocked his chair back in the process. His first instinct was to jump across the table and clock Sam one, but then he took a deep, shuddering exhale, trying to tell himself that this other Sam didn't understand because he hadn't lived their lives. He didn't understand jack shit, because he had grown up with a loving father and a goddamn trust fund, never once having to worry about money or food or whether or not child protective services would show up one day and tear his family apart. He hadn't lost his mom to the cause, hadn't been used and manipulated in every goddamn possible way by angels and demons and God-all-freaking-mighty for the sake of 'entertainment'. So yeah, maybe Dean wanted to wipe that self-righteous, indignant look off of Not-Sam's face right now, but he wouldn't. He couldn't. Because the kid had no goddamn clue about what they'd been through.

"Look," Dean eventually forced out from behind clenched teeth. "My brother is not a junkie and whatever you read about in those damn books, it's not even half of what the two of us have gone through, so you can't even begin to understand us."

"He chose a demon over you," Sam said low under his breath, almost a whisper. He sounded incredulous, affronted – as though he took offence in the betrayal on Dean's behalf.

"He thought he was doing the right thing!"

"He almost killed you!"

"He wasn't himself."

"That doesn't excuse—"

"YES IT DOES!" Dean slammed a palm down on the table and then there was silence, only mildly disturbed by the sound of both of their breathing. Dean's body was shaking and his palm stung from the force of the impact and all he could think about – all he could feel – was the truth of what he had just said, the absolute, irrevocable, undeniable truth of it all. That he had long since forgiven Sam… that all of these things lay in the past. That if anything, he carried just as much guilt as Sam.

"If you had bothered to read all of them, you'd know that I've done worse…" Dean said, his voice back to its normal volume now that he had somewhat deflated. "But it's over. We've made some mistakes, okay? I'm the first one to admit it, but whatever happened is in the past and we've come out of it stronger than before."

"Your father was right about one thing." Not-Sam challenged, his eyes narrowing to slits and Dean kind of wondered how the other man had transitioned from a bloodied bundle of misery in the mapping room to this taller-than-life, whirlwind of fury in front of him right now.

"And what's that?" Dean challenged, still breathing heavily with how worked-up he was.

"You should have killed him when you had the chance," Sam said in an icy tone and he was dead-serious, too, from the looks of it. "Would have saved you two a whole lot of trouble."

Dean's fingers ached with how hard he curled them into the library table. His knuckles went bloodless from the strain and his jaw was locked hard enough to snap.

"I think you should go before I do something I'd regret."

It took a moment for Not-Sam to get it.

Then his expression shifted and he almost looked affronted.

But there was something in Dean's tone that must have given away how much he was not kidding around about this. With a huff, Not-Sam whirled around and stormed off, leaving Dean to stare after his retreating back.

Dean stood there, completely still, not even daring to blink until Not-Sam was out of sight. Then his gaze shifted down to the worn-out, dog-eared paperback that Not-Sam had left lying on the library table. He carefully picked up the book and it fell open on its own accord, probably on one of the pages Not-Sam had spent the most time on reading.

"Stop bossing me around, Dean. Look. My whole life, you take the wheel, you call the shots, and I trust you because you are my brother. Now I'm asking you, for once, trust me."

Sam was pleading with Dean, begging him to understand, but Dean just shook his head out of fear for the dark road his brother was going down. "No. You don't know what you're doing, Sam.

"Yes, I do."

"Then that's worse."

"Why? Look, I'm telling you—"

Dean, running out of patience, never allowed his brother to finish. "Because it's not something that you're doing, it's what you are! It means—" he cut himself off and Sam turned around, his own emotions getting the better of him as the tension between the brother's became unbearable.

Dean's eyes were brimming with tears.

"What? No," Sam said, too far gone now to notice his brother's pain. Anger and hurt warred on his face as he stood rigid, waiting for the inevitable. Waiting for the words he had never expected to hear from the person that mattered most to him in the world. "Say it."

"It means you're a monster."

Dean slammed the book shut and squeezed his eyes closed, a cold shiver wrecking his spine at the memory. It hurt to know that they'd lived through that, that there had been a time where they'd purposefully hurt each other. Where they had said things that could never be taken back, damaging, destructive things that would shatter the foundations of their bond for years to come. It also hurt to know what came after that heated exchange… to remember Sam's fury. The cold indifference in his eyes as he wrapped his hands around Dean's neck and squeezed the life from him.

It hurt to remember the 'You walk out that door, don't you ever come back,' in a phantom echo of what their father had once told Sam. And it hurt even worse to remember the way Sam had lingered in front of the door, turned back to look at his broken, wheezing, bloodied brother on the floor and to leave.

There was a goddamn reason for why Dean had never read those books.

Some things that had happened between them were long since forgiven, but never forgotten.

And Dean had enough nightmares about his brother falling to his knees in the mud-soaked ground with a knife stuck in his spine to be wanting to relive that scene by reading a detailed book about the way Sam felt, heavy and lifeless in his arms, about the way he couldn't hold his head upright, about how oily his blood had felt as it quickly drained out of his body, about how Dean had felt Sam fading against him… about how he had felt his Sam's last breath against his neck and just… known.

With a roar that was loud enough to echo down the halls of the bunker, Dean grabbed the book that read 'When the Levee Breaks' and whirled it through the air until it hit the library bookshelves with a smack and then tumbled to the ground in a heap of crinkled paper.

If he had thought this night had sucked before, it got a hell of a lot worse just now.

oooooOOOOooooo

The next morning was awkward, to say the least.

Dean was visibly hungover, dark circles beneath his eyes as he trudged up to the fridge and went in search for something to eat. And Not-Sam had only made a brief appearance in the kitchen doorway, only to storm off in a huff the next second when his eyes fell onto Dean by the fridge.

"What was that all about?" Sam asked with a frown, noticing the miffed expression on his brother's face as though these two had had some sort of exchange that Sam didn't know about.

"Probably on his period," Dean grumpily replied and okayyyy, Sam rolled his eyes, not wanting to get into a discussion with his brother when he was in such a surly mood. "Hey, you, uhm… you okay about—"

"Jesus, Christ, Sam!" Dean snapped, slamming the fridge closed and whirling around to glare daggers at his unsuspecting younger brother. "Could you maybe wait for me to fully wake up before you start your interrogation? I haven't even had coffee, yet!"

Eyes wide, and heart beating wildly with shock, Sam just blinked at Dean as his brother turned around and stormed out of the kitchen.

Yep….

Something had definitely gone down last night.

oooooOOOOooooo

Dean felt about ten seconds of satisfaction from his outburst in that kitchen before he felt like shit about it. He had been well on his way back to his room, when guilt slammed into him like a freight train and he remembered last night, lying up in bed with a bunch of Chuck Shirley's paperbacks and reading through pages and chapters like reading was going out of fashion or something. And thinking the whole goddamn time… 'I'm so fucking sorry, Sammy…' and 'I should have been there for you' and 'I made so many goddamn mistakes' and 'If I could turn back time—' only to end up exploding all over his little brother's unsuspecting face the first chance he got the next morning.

Thing was, his head was still pounding from the Whisky he'd tried to numb his pain with. And the fact that these two imposters were still running around the bunker wasn't exactly helping his emotional state, either.

Speaking of which…

"Hey, uh… Dean?"

Dean turned around to find his spitting mirror image in the bunker's hallway behind him, coming freshly showered out of the bathroom. His hair was still damp and his cheeks were flushed, but other than that he now looked scarily similar to Dean wearing a set of his own fresh clothes and with his hair no longer kempt to the side in that ridiculous fashion.

"What?" Dean snapped, his patience worn thin from all the shit that had happened in the past 48-hours and maybe… quite probably… from lack of sleep and a hangover from hell. He held his breath and looked up at the ceiling, trying to gather enough composure to keep himself from being a total asshole and then released the breath, trying this whole thing again. "I mean, what do you need?"

Not-Dean stared at him for a moment before tugging at a dark cord that was half-hidden beneath his shirt. Dean's heart sank before he even knew what his look-alike was doing. His insides clenched with panic and everything inside of him revolted when Not-Dean pulled the amulet out from beneath his shirt, dangling it in front of his face, on full display for everyone. "Can I ask you… did your dad give you a necklace similar to this one?"

"My dad?" Dean croaked, grimacing at the unsteadiness of his tone. "No, why…" he halted, then shook his head. "Sammy gave it to me. But that was…" he cleared his throat. "It was a long time ago, when we were both kids."

"Oh," Not-Dean said, letting go of the penchant and allowing it to fall back down to his chest. "And you are…" he gestured awkwardly at Dean – at the lack of a similar necklace around his neck. "You lost it?"

It was all too much. Dean had had enough of the emotional bullcrap. He wasn't just going to stand there and allow for these two frauds to bring up all that shit from their past, to make them question their brotherhood over things that had happened too long ago for them to even fully remember and—

"He didn't lose it," came a third voice from behind Not-Dean and Dean rolled his eyes at the sight of that ridiculous Man-bun Not-Sam had tied his hair into. The AU version of his younger brother was leaning against the wall with an indignant expression on his face, arms crossed in front of his chest and Dean started to regret that he hadn't clocked him one when he had had the chance. "He threw it away. Into a trashcan. While his brother watched."

"Okay, you know what? I think it's time for you to leave."

"Oh, don't you worry about us leaving!" Not-Sam snapped. "I'll be damned before I spend another day in this dump watching an alcoholic and an ex-junkie try to fix a brotherhood that's beyond repair."

And alright, Dean had really shown a lot of patience with these two, he had. But this was definitely pushing the limits of what he was willing to accept. Shooting forward with lightning speed, Dean grabbed Not-Sam and knocked him back hard against the bunker's concrete wall. He pinned the younger man down by his shoulders, getting right up into his face when he spoke. "You better take that back."

"Hey, let go! Get off him," Not-Dean yelled at him, tugging on Dean's arm, but Dean didn't budge, his eyes spitting fire at Not-Sam, who looked about ready to pee his pants. Some hunters they were…. Not-Dean trying to dislodge him in an absolute feeble attempt at using physical force and Not-Sam, probably too worried about getting his clothes dirty or breaking a fingernail than to even try and fend Dean off. These two called themselves hunters? They probably had people doing the dirty work for them at 'Hunter Corp'. Dean doubted they'd ever had to dig up a single grave themselves in their entire lives. Much less, gotten killed or tortured or spent a few decades or in Sam's case… centuries in freaking hell. They knew nothing. Absolutely nothing.

"Dean!" Sam's voice boomed through the hallway and it was only then, that Dean seemed to snap out of it. His brother's tone was alarmed, high-pitched with worry and that was enough to break through the haze of fury clouding Dean's judgment. "Dean, what the hell? Let him go!"

As if burnt by the touch, Dean suddenly let go of Sam's doppelganger and took a step back, allowing the younger man to dust of his clothes and straighten himself back to his normal height.

"You two are lunatics!" Not-Sam hissed, clearly distraught from Dean's outburst.

Not-Dean checked his brother over, touching his cheek and then cupping his neck in visible concern before he sent a glower over his shoulder. "You're savages."

To all of their surprise, it was Sam who chose a fitting comeback, not Dean. "And you two are spoiled brats, so I say we call it even and all just… go our separate ways."

"Spoiled brats?" Not-Sam gasped out the words like they were somehow worse insults than 'savages' or 'lunatics' on his scale.

"Look guys, let's just agree on the fact that we're all just… different, okay?" Sam tried to appeal to their look-alikes. "Dean and I… we've lived through a lot. I mean we've both died before, okay? Many, many times. We've been to hell and back, literally. We've saved the freaking world. We've defeated Death, and Lucifer and right now, we have more important stuff to deal with than to try and convince two snobbish, strange-looking versions of ourselves of why we live the way we live."

And that was that.

Dean couldn't have agreed more.

Suddenly he felt almost sheepish for his behavior earlier, for the way he'd allowed himself to get riled up by these two when there were much more pressing issues at hand for them to deal with.

"He's right," Dean said in a much calmer voice now, exchanging a look with his brother. "We don't owe you a freaking explanation. This is our world. We've saved it time and time again. Everyone you'll meet here, everything you'll see or touch in this world exists because of us. So we don't care about what you think. This is our reality. Our story. And we'll deal with it our own way."

After a long beat of silence, Sam nodded toward the guys' rooms at the end of the hallway. "C'mon. We'll see you guys out."

oooooOOOOooooo

As soon as they were gone, Dean felt relieved.

Breathing was easier somehow, too. Almost as though their mere presence had weighed his chest down, that constant reminder of what 'could have been' of all the opportunities Sam and he never got to have, all the trauma these two were never forced to live through, had really taken its toll on him.

"You uh… gonna be alright?" Sam asked gently, setting a beer down in front of Dean, where he sat at the mapping table. Dean glanced up, never more relieved at the sight of Sam's unruly, tousled mop of ridiculously long hair. He never wanted to see it tied up again, for as long as he lived.

"Fine," Dean muttered, curling his fingers around the chilled bottle with no real intention on drinking it, anyway. He was lost in thought, lost in a whirlwind of emotion and memories… and regret.

After a while, almost as if in hindsight, Dean returned the question. "Are you?"

Because this hadn't been easy for Sam, either. Dean could tell.

He wondered how much of that conversation in the hallway Sam had heard and grimaced, an old, old pain from another lifetime simmering in his chest.

"I'm good," Sam answered calmly, deliberately. It wasn't a straight-out lie, but it wasn't quite the truth either.

Dean nodded anyway, and then stared at his little brother's face, at the carefully blank expression there, as though Sam was painfully trying to hold back words around him, trying to steer clear of all the long-forgotten issues that had been stirred back to life in the past 24 hours.

"Sammy." Dean made a point of using his brother's nickname and Sam's face brightened up on mere instinct. He lifted his chin, a hopeful kind of wonder in his eyes, a trace of insecurity and longing and hero-worship. Dean swallowed, unsure of how to put this next part into words. There were too many things he wanted to say and ask… like why the hell Sam had never told him about those six months he'd stayed dead after the Trickster's time loop. Or about his hallucinations during the time he went through detox. Or about the fact that Sam still blamed himself for not being the one to save Dean from hell. All of that had been in Chuck's books…. All of it. And Dean didn't even know where to begin wrapping his head around the mess that was their lives. Or their relationship. But he knew one thing for sure… "Our brotherhood's not broken."

Sam's expression fell, emotions warring on his face and Dean didn't give him the time to dwell on that, didn't want for his brother to lose it now. Not before he had said what he'd meant to say.

"Maybe it got dented along the way or something, or… or bruised. But never broken," Dean said, trying for a smile. "I want you to know that, okay?" And fuck it, but then Dean's voice was wavering, too, unstable because fuck these two assholes for making him say all these things he'd thought went without saying between them. Fuck them for bringing up stuff they had thought long-forgotten. "I want you to know without a goddamn shred of doubt, that there was never a moment in all of this – not one – where our brotherhood wasn't the single most important thing in my life. And I know we've had our set-backs… but through it all, the demon blood, and- and our fight in that hotel room and… Ruby or whatever – take your pick – none of that changed what you mean to me. Like – ever."

Sam was close to tears now and Dean was swallowing hard around that damn lump in his throat and they both just sat there basking in the relief that the words brought.

"I know," Sam eventually whispered, nodding his head and blinking against the stubborn wetness in his eyes. "You too."

"Okay," Dean said, smiling gently. "That'... that's good."

They both smiled, and then took a swig from their beer, each. Relieved that the moment was over, but even more relieved, maybe, for having said what needed to be said in the aftermath of last night.

"So I guess that means there won't be a club called 'The Whimsical, Wacky, Wondrous World of Winchesters'?"

"I know." Dean cracked up, grinning over at his brother from ear-to-ear. "What a damn shame."

Sam mirrored his grin and this was good. This was all they needed – all they had ever needed. Screw money and a private jet and a wife and kids and a normal childhood. Dean didn't need any of that, not at the expense of this right there, going from a heart-felt chick-flick moment to an honest-to-god laugh within the span of a few minutes.

Maybe they had gone through a lot of shit together, and hell, maybe they were savages in a way. Lunatics, they were for sure. Many things could be said about their lifestyle or life choices… but their sense of family? What they had been through together? What they meant to each other?

A universe in which a bond was stronger than theirs had yet to be created.

"Jerk," Sam smiled over at him and Dean's response was immediate. "Bitch."

Yeah.

They were going to be just fine.

The End.

A/N: Hi everyone! I hope you're all safe and sound. I've had a pretty bad case of writer's block for a long time now and I'm not going to lie, on top of that it's just really hard for me to write about the boys when the show is hardly ever about the brothers anymore. But then again, if we're all stuck at home with nothing to do, might as well give it a shot and spread some happiness (which I hope I did for at least some of you) Sending you all my love! Stay healthy and keep your heads up! We're all in this together :) And please share your thought with me about the story. Reviews make me happy!