OK! I know if you have read a lot of my stories then you may realise I am a little obsessed with AU's so this is my take on What Is and What Should Never Be.

What Can Never Be
Sam/Dean
Angst
(Please just ignore the Djinn. i'm pretending it was an alternate universe he got trapped in).

It's October now. Dean has been trapped inside this phoney world for almost a year and it's driving him insane. Despite several attempts on his behalf, his relationship with Sam had not improved. He loved his mom and spent as much time as he could with her, asking her to tell him stories of his childhood (one he hadn't experienced) and being the most attentive son he could possibly be. He loved his job at the garage, spending every working day under the hood of some fine car was something he should pay for he was so happy doing it. And he loved Carmen. It had shocked him when he had finally realised that while he had been pretending to be a loving partner he had become one; after all she was beautiful, not too intense, funny, had great taste, and loved him. He would never ask for anything more in a woman. They had their ups and downs though. She knew he was keeping things from her, and she was stressed out; working more and more night shifts at the hospital while Dean went over and over the same texts on comas and alternate realities and djinns and anything that could cause him to be in or to believe he was in another world. One with out His Sammy.

He missed Sammy so damned much. It was killing him. Everyday he would research spells and demons that could have done this. And everyday he wondered if Sammy was ok. Had the Yellow Eyed Son of a Bitch demon gotten to him? Was he alive? Was he hunting or at school again? Had he met the right woman? Had he looked for Dean? Did he miss Dean half as much as Dean missed his Sammy. Did he miss what they had had?

Dean knew that the relationship he had had with his brother had not been... healthy, or normal or politically correct or moral. Not according to law or reason but... maybe it had been the way they had been raised. Learning from the cradle to the grave that the only people they could trust was each other, that Dean had to look after Sammy no matter what, that they couldn't have any friends for longer than a few months (tops!) and that they would always have each other. Already they had felt above the law; their dad running credit card scams and encouraging Dean to learn to hustle people out of their money in order to keep them in fast food, clothes, and gas, as well as the fact that they lived off the grid and learnt to hunt supernatural things that other people thought were just stories made up in order to scare/amuse. So they really hadn't struggled that much with the fact that it was against several laws that they fuck each other senseless. However, they knew that their father would not share the same views.

John Winchester had grown up in a world of relative safety and security and he also had old fashioned views about homosexuality. While neither Sam or Dean had thought that being gay would be something their father would disown them for they knew he would disapprove and feel uncomfortable about it. And that was omitting the fact that they were also being incestuous.

But that was another life; another world; another Sammy Winchester. Dean felt nothing approaching lust for this Sam. He was glad this was the case or it would make life even more difficult.

Still, he longed for His Sammy's touch. For the feel of Sam's hands caressing his... well any part of him really but especially THERE. Carmen just wasn't the same. Not that he didn't lust after her (he was still alive, damn it) and not that he didn't love her; but if he was being brutally-soul-destroying-ly-truthful then he would have to say he didn't love her as much as he loved His Sammy.

It was late one night and he was going over his research for the hundredth time. Carmen was lying in bed - probably watching the light from under the door waiting for Dean to give up and come to bed with her, and he was etting tired and angry. Why had this happened to him? Why was he being punished by being seperated from the one person he loved more than anyone else in either worlds? It just wasn't fair - after having to give up/lose everyone else and everything else he had ever had; Mom, Dad, a normal life, Cassie, the chance of college... now he had to give up Sammy too! In a sudden burst of anger and rage and pain Dean threw the text to the floor sending paper and pens scattering everywhere.

And that was when it happened. Dean looked up and just for a moment - a split second that was like looking into Heaven before being sent into Hell - he saw Sammy, His Sammy, and heard his lover whisper 'Dean' brokenly and hold out hand before he was gone and Dean was left kneeling on the floor; heart going a hundred miles a second, thinking that maybe it had been a dream. But he couldn't shake the feeling that it had been real and the rising hope that went with it.

TBC - link to CHAPTER TWO