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“What do you want, Sam?” Dean asks, worried. Dean is five years old (and one-quarter, Mommy told Dean that July 24th is his half-birthday, so he’s probably somewhere close to one-quarter now).
Sammy has been crying all night. Daddy finally fell asleep yesterday morning, and hasn’t woken up yet. They’re staying in a mo-tell (that’s what Daddy calls it), and Daddy’s been flat and tough like wood all month. He barely speaks at all, and Dean’s been trying to change Sammy’s diapers like he helped Mommy do so Daddy doesn’t have to worry about it.
Sammy is his responsibility now, now that Mommy’s gone and Daddy won’t talk.
Sammy tilts his little head back and wails some more. Dean’s stomach hurts with it, every little peal. He sounds like a lamb (lambs go baa), because he’s so sleepy. When he wakes up, he sounds loud and angry like fire engines. Dean always covers his ears when they drive past, but Sammy is only little, so Dean doesn’t do it for him. If he doesn’t listen to Sammy, who will?
A loud angry pounding comes from the door. Dean jumps, guilty. He skitters over to the door and barely cracks it open. Daddy told him that they can only count on each other now, before he stopped speaking, so Dean’s not going to let this person in.
“Can you quit that goddamn racket?” A tall, angry man demands. He’s looking up, like he’s trying to see someone above Dean’s head, like Dean’s a grown-up.
“Sorry, sir. My mommy’s trying.” Dean says, mouth pressed to the crack so he can close it hard and fast again. They don’t need anyone. They have Dean, and Dean can be grown-up until Daddy gets normal again.
Sammy’s on his back on the bed, and Dean’s frantically running through a checklist. Sammy’s diaper was just changed. His little belly is all big, so Dean knows he ate recently. Dean rushes up to the baby on the bed. Sam’s little arms and legs are raised up, and his pink face is all screwed up.
Dean asks again, “What do you want, Sammy?”
Sam doesn’t speak, but his mouth opens and closes a few times like he’s trying. Dean knows that he can’t, not really, but he wants more than anything to talk to someone that’s not Daddy. Dean crawls up onto the bed next to him, and pulls him into his arms again. He’s not one year old yet, but he’s already so much bigger than he was the night of the fire. Dean sits up against the headboard and holds a hand under Sammy’s neck the way Mommy taught him.
Dean wants his blankie, because it’s cold, but it went away in the fire. It’s okay. Dean's a grown-up now, so he shouldn’t need one.
Dean tries to bounce Sammy in his arms, like he sees Daddy do sometimes, when his eyes get all wet and drippy. Sammy’s so heavy, though, so Dean doesn’t get very far. Daddy snores loud and long in the bed next to him.
Sammy’s still quietly crying, so Dean does what he used to when he got sad. He sticks his thumb into Sam’s mouth.
Sam immediately stops crying, eyes going all big and confused and it makes Dean laugh a little. Sam starts sucking on his thumb, the way Dean used to when he was sad, and it tickles a little, but at least he’s not crying anymore.
“There ya’ go, Sammy!” Dean says, relief and tiredness too big racketing through his small frame. “I always know whatcha need, don’t I?”
They fall asleep like that, Sam wrapped in a blanket in Dean’s arms, with Dean curled over him like he’s trying to make a cave out of his body.
~~~
“What do you want, Sam?” Dean asks, looking up and down the aisles of the gas station. Colorful candy bars make his stomach rumble, and he picks up a Snickers bar. It promises to be share size, so Dean looks down at his little brother.
Sam trails after him, and the hem of his jeans are stuck under the heel of his shoe. If he keeps walking on them, they’ll fray, and they can’t afford to replace 'em.
Dean puts the candy bar back and kneels, tapping Sam on the calf so he’ll lift up his foot. Sam quietly acquiesces. Dean props his worn sneaker on his knee. The kid is so quiet all the time. Dean does all of his talking for him, so Sam never really has to ask for anything.
Whenever Dad asks Sam a question, Dean jumps in for him, so Sam doesn’t have to. Dad says it’s making Sam develop slowly, but Dean knows that Sam loves to talk to his school friends and Dean. Sam just doesn’t have a lot to say at home, and that’s not so wrong, is it? Sam talks to Dean, and that’s all he needs to do.
Dean cuffs Sam’s jeans, and it’s hard to believe that clothes this small used to fit on Dean—never mind how it’s still so big on Sam. Dean taps Sam’s other calf and Sam props his other leg up so Dean can do it to his other pant leg.
Sammy turned five this past May, and November has been hurtling around the corner. Dean followed a couple of kids around on Halloween and snagged a bunch of candy with them. He stayed in the back of the group and the fun thing about Halloween is no one will notice an extra nine-year-old walking around.
The annie-verse-ary (Dean has to pronounce that word very precisely because two of his front teeth are gone) of Mom’s death is tomorrow, and Dad’s been getting quieter and angrier about it all week. Dean knows that he needs to make whatever food they get now count, because Dad won’t let them out to grab anything else for the next day or so.
Dean eyes the candy forlornly as he stands up again. He’s squirreled away the candy that he did get yesterday and snuck some to Sam in his school lunch today. If he’s careful, he can hopefully make it last to the new year. Christmas, more likely. Sam went ballistic when he opened his lunchbox and found candy this afternoon—Dean could see his grin across the cafeteria since kindergartners and third graders couldn’t sit together.
“I want Bugles,” Sam says decidedly. He’s been saying everything very decidedly these days, like he’s on the news. Dean knows Sam wants Bugles because he likes lining them up in his mouth and making trumpet noises. Dean also knows that that drives Dad crazy.
“Hmm, okay,” Dean says, and grabs Sam’s hand. He’ll stick those under his belt instead of paying for them so Dad doesn’t see them. Sam’ll be real happy if he gets them tomorrow, because he’ll probably forget that he asked for them. Dean doesn’t mind when Sam does the Bugles thing, so he’ll wait until after Dad leaves.
They turn the corner of the aisle. Dean starts grabbing Slim Jims and hands them to Sam to hold. Sam holds his arms out in a basket shape, and Dean starts lining things up. A couple of Slim Jims, two cans of Spam, a bag of pork rinds, and some almonds. Sammy’s gotten really into almonds lately.
Dean doesn’t understand, but Sam gets really restless when he does his spelling homework if he doesn’t have something to chew on.
Dean moves Sam in front of him as they walk over to the drinks. Dean grabs a couple bottles of water and a coke. Dad’ll grab beer later.
They go up to the pay place and Dean takes the credit card out of his pocket and puts it on the sticky counter. The guy gives him a weird look, and peers over the counter so he can see Sammy. Dean takes a step in front of him, and adjusts so the guy is looking at him again.
“Our dad’s outside.” Dean says, tense and suddenly a little sick. He wishes he were old or tall or scary enough that he didn’t need the threat of his dad to ward people off.
“Okay?” The guy says, slow and stretched out like Dean confuses him. Dean doesn’t care. The guy bags it all up and Dean grabs the bag with one hand and Sam’s hand in the other.
Sammy presses the door open with a small palm because he likes to feel big, and Dean watches the set of his tiny shoulders as he walks out into the sunshine. Maybe one day he’ll be big enough that he can scare people away, too.
But then what would Dean be for? So maybe not.
~~~
“What do you want, Sam?” Dean asks, as he thumbs through the one dollar bills in his jacket pocket.
The ice cream shop is quaint and spells “shop” on their sign like “shoppe” and Sammy is eating up every second. He’s got his round little face practically smashed up into the glass, and Dean can see his breaths fog up the display case.
The girl behind the counter gives Dean a look through her lashes, and Dean can feel himself flush hot all over. Dean knows that he should probably do something, but he’s unsure as to what. He’s taken a few girls out so far—I mean, come on, he’s fourteen—but starting from scratch with a new girl outside the context of school is a little tough.
He drove Sammy over after school today, and even though he’s been driving for four years, he still feels all cool and tingly when he gets to pick Sam up. It feels…normal, almost. Like Mom and Dad are going to be at work, and Dean—the relentlessly suave (a vocabulary word from The Most Dangerous Game back in Billings, Montana) older brother—can pick Sam up after soccer practice.
Dean’s started working on his cooler older brother phrases (“Hey, Sammy, who’s the chick?” “C’mon, lil bro, food’s gettin’ cold.” “You gonna wait til’ your balls drop, princess? We gotta go!”) but Sam’s not quite ready for ‘em yet.
He’s only nine, even though he feels both way older and way younger to Dean. The kid was born at age thirty-five with two kids and a mortgage, while Dean feels like he was born at negative thirty-five and is still trying to catch up. Dean relishes spring, because a) Sammy gets to start soccer, and that kid needs to run off all his anxiety and b) Dean is five years older than Sam instead of the usual four. He truly becomes insufferable from February to May, but it’s his solemn duty as an older brother to flaunt it.
But right now, with his eyes all big and his excited babble, he looks four at the absolute oldest.
It makes Dean all soft and wobbly on the inside, which is pretty damn embarrassing.
“Pistachio!” Sam crows, hopping back and forth on his feet like he can’t hardly contain himself. “No, no! Moose tracks!”
Sam slides down the glass, and Dean can see the smudges that his hands leave. He gasps so loudly that Dean’s heart gives a little fearful lurch, out of habit and nothing more.
“Cotton candy ?!” He bellows, and an aggravated mother shoots Dean a look. Dean shoots a look right back. If his kid wants to shout about ice cream, he’s damn well going to. Sam whirls around and pins Dean with a baffled stare. “How did they get it into ice cream? It dissolves in water!”
Sam the tax attorney is back. Dean rolls his eyes as he steps up to be level with Sam. He has no damn idea, really, but Sam’s not going to know that. If he were a regular fourteen-year-old, he would say “magic,” and maybe Sam would believe him.
But he’s not normal, and if he said “magic,” Sam would really believe him. And it wouldn’t be jokes and Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
He leans forward so he can peer down into the blue and pink carton. The amulet at his neck blinks in the fluorescent light, and Dean’s chest goes all tight. He’s had it for two years but it still makes him warm and weird on the inside. He looks back up at the girl behind the counter.
The stars in Sam’s eyes have chased away any interest Dean might’ve had in her, so he doesn’t feel awkward and sweaty like he usually would when he asks for a sample.
The girl makes sure that her arms press her chest together as she leans over to get it, and Dean raises a brow. Fair enough. She passes the small spoon over, and Dean hands it to Sam.
Sammy, despite frothing at the mouth for it, very carefully only takes half of the marble-sized sample, and passes the rest back to Dean.
Dean is surprised—and way too touched—as he puts the spoon in his own mouth. Sam’s always doing stuff like that, and it takes Dean’s breath away sometimes. Obviously he does it for Sam, duh, Sam is Dean’s whole thing. But Sam returning the same care (saving drinks for Dean, stealing Dean birthday gifts and hiding them in his duffle, leaning into Dean when they watch movies, thoughtlessly saving half of his pie for Dean like of course he was going to give it to Dean) always takes him off-guard.
Sam’s eyes go even wider, if possible, and his mouth drops open.
“Dean,” He says, reverent. Dean laughs at the dumb look on his face. “They put cotton candy in ice cream. They have to have had, right? There’s no other explanation.”
Dean shrugs, “Sure tastes like it. You want this one?”
Sam nods rapidly, dumb floppy hair that Dad keeps getting on his case about swishing on his forehead.
“One scoop in a cup, please ma’am.” Sam says dutifully, and Dean snorts. He’s been trying to get the kid to use manners lately, since he’s not been calling Dad “sir.” Dad always hollers at Dean when he doesn’t say it, but hasn’t been getting onto Sam about it. Dean wants to make sure that Sam gets used to being polite in case Dad suddenly flips. He does that a lot.
The fifteen-year-old behind the counter does not look impressed at the “ma’am,” but Dean still gives Sam a thumbs up when he looks up at Dean proudly.
“Make his a double-scoop.” Dean says, and Sam gasps like he’s been shot. Dean wrestles his mouth back into a flat line, all cool, when he looks down at Sam.
“Do you want gummy worms on it?”
Sam balks, seemingly struck dumb. Dean kicks him in the shin, gentle. Sam snaps to attention.
“Yes! Could I?” He shouts, and the mother in the corner gives him another glare. She’s lucky she has a four year old in her lap or Dean would show her his new favorite finger.
“Gummy worms on that, please.” Dean says, and he must’ve smiled funny because the girl goes all blush-y and splotchy. She giggles an affirmative. Dean takes out the cash in his pocket.
It’s all wrinkled ones that he’d painstakingly straightened with the flat of a bowie knife while waiting for Sam outside of the school. He’d gotten his first legit job recently, bussing tables at a shit-hole diner off I-35 that didn’t have any compunction (vocab word from A Tale of Two Cities back in Austin, Texas that Sam loved to say as fast as he could when Dean had been going over his flashcards) about sliding the obviously-too-young Dean money under the table.
He does the quick math based on the board. He has to use his fingers, and feels silly. One buck fifty a scoop, fifty cents for gummy worms, maybe another fifty in tax. Dean riffles through his bills again. Oh sweet, he has enough for a scoop for himself.
“And one scoop of—“ Dean scans the case quickly, hadn’t expected to be able to afford something for him. “—birthday cake ice cream in a sugar cone.”
The girl giggles again, even though Dean didn’t say something funny, and starts scooping that too. She passes them both over the counter, and goes over to the register.
“That’s $6.23.” She says, and Dean freezes. Shit. He must’ve calculated the tax wrong. He has six dollars, but no change. He pats his pockets down just to be sure, but nope, nothing rattles but his keys.
Embarrassment, hot and agonizing, burns the tips of his ears, his chest. He laughs, awkwardly.
“Uh—You can forget the—“ He starts, but Sam tugs on his sleeve, hard. Dean looks down, and Sammy’s holding up a quarter, as proud and shiny as anything.
“I found it on the ground on the playground today,” He whispers, quick and urgent. It makes Dean’s heart heavy, makes his lungs constrict. Can’t even do something nice for his boy, can he?
Dean takes the quarter with heavy fingers.
“Thanks, Sammy.” He passes the quarter over to the girl, who takes it wordlessly. She must’ve been able to see something on his face, because she doesn’t smile at him when she hands him his two pennies back.
As they leave the ice cream shop and step into the sun, Sam turns and plops down on a bench. Dean falls next to him, and passes him a napkin as Sam starts devouring his ice cream. His eyes are brighter than the summer sun above as his unstoppable smile makes them all crinkly.
He tilts his head up to look at Dean, blue and pink ice cream making the corners of his mouth purple. “I like pennies better anyhow. They’re way shinier.”
Dean wants to cry.
~~~
“What do you want, Sam?” Dean asks, and braces his diaphragm down like he’s got the hiccups to avoid throwing up. The rooms spins a little bit. Headlights chase each other across the motel wall through the slats of the blinds, and it makes Dean stumble.
Sam’s way too indignant for a thirteen-year old, and he reminds Dean a little of Pastor Jim—all fire and brimstone. It’s just them tonight, since Dean left Dad back at the bar.
“I want you to be sober.” Sam spits, and if those are actual tears in his eyes, Dean’s going to start laughing. Sam must see the smile on Dean’s face, because he crosses his arms over his bird-bone chest. “You’ve got a problem, Dean.”
“A problem?” Dean repeats, incredulous, as he flops down on their bed. The popcorn ceiling is spotty like stars. Dean giggles. He had walked home from the bar an hour ago and slammed his fingers into the motel wall on accident. Blood spots his knuckles, and the burn wakes Dean up when he curls his fingers.
“You drank so much last month that you were sick for days in Milwaukee.” Sam says like he’s proving something, and Dean looks up. The kid is so damn worked up. He needs a drink. He’s as taut as a garrote—wait! That rhymed. Dean snorts.
“What does that have to do with you?” Dean raises a brow. His mouth tastes like dog shit on fire, and his tongue is sloppy and useless in his mouth. He smacks his lips distastefully. Not thinking is so much nicer than thinking, and the godawful taste of Pabst makes it worth it.
“I want to stop being scared.” Sam says, tremulously, and Dean rolls his eyes. He has to close them, then, because nausea twists his stomach. “Because I am, all the goddamn time.”
“We’ve got .45s for a reason.“ Dean says, irritated and syrupy and sleepy.
“I’m scared that you’re going to drink yourself to death, and you’re seventeen.” Sam powers on, like he didn’t even hear Dean. Like he’s been rehearsing this, or some shit. “What do you think’ll happen to me, Dean? Hm? If you die?”
If Dean dies? Dean tries to imagine that. Sam would probably be glad, all things considered. The kid can barely stand him these days. Dean can finally use his cool older brother phrases, but Sam keeps dodging his friendly pats and hair ruffles and attempts at movie nights.
Dean tries to imagine Sam doing a little jig on his grave. Could he learn river dancing in time? Sammy’s certainly getting the legs for it. Dean snorts.
“Dad’ll take care of you,” Dean says, dismissive.
“Will he? Look me in the eye and tell me Dad wouldn’t drink himself to death right after you.” Sam insists. Dean blinks his eyes open, and Sam is way closer than he thought he was. Sam is pressed up against the bed, kneeling in Dean’s space. Dean flinches back, and it makes his head throb painfully.
“Jesus, Sam.” Dean says. He’s too drunk for this. He got drunk for this exact reason. Sam can’t stand him anymore, so on principle, Dean’s starting to hate himself a little, too. If Dean had stayed back with him, he would have gotten Sam’s teenage angst and anger and disgust. So he went out with Dad, instead.
“You’re really gonna leave me alone, huh?” Sam says, and damn that kid loves a guilt-trip.
“Stop being such a little bitch about it.” Dean snaps. Dad’s a little absent, sure, but he’d take care of Sam if push came to shove.
“You’re gonna kill yourself, and you’re gonna make me watch.” Sam’s eyes are so bright in the yellow light of the lamp that Dean has to look away. “You’re a selfish asshole.”
“And you’re a sensitive little dickhead,” Dean bites out through gritted teeth. “It’s just a few drinks. Everybody drinks.”
“No, Dad drinks. Not everyone starts drinking at nine a.m.,” Sam shoots back, and Dean has to stop a yawn. He’s just so tired. Can’t Sam see that he’s just tired? “Just because Dad’s trying to drown his liver doesn’t mean you have to.”
Dean runs a hand over his face. If he knew that Sam was going to start bitching at him as soon as he walked through the door, Dean would’ve stayed out. When did it change? When did Dean morph from Sam’s best friend to his worst enemy?
Sam keeps shooting Dean angry, panicked looks all the damn time, like he’s watching Dean melt in slow motion. He keeps snapping at all of Dean’s girls, and he pretends to be asleep whenever Dean comes home from work so they don’t have to talk.
Sue Dean for wanting to get out. Hasn’t he given up enough for this boy? Hasn’t he given everything? What if he’s tired? What if he wants a goddamn beer after work—what’s that got to do with anything?
“Shut the fuck up, kid. God.” Dean groans, and he throws his head back on the bed. He’s nearing terminal hour with these jeans, and they feel uncomfortable and starchy on his legs. Silence reigns in the motel room, and Dean can only faintly hear the highway noise from here.
His head throbs, and he can feel his pulse thunder.
It’s too, quiet, almost. Dean hopes that Sam has stomped away like usual.
“Dee.”
It’s so small that Dean barely hears it. But he knows that anywhere. He would know that small little word if he were deaf, if he had never heard it before, if his whole brain was scrambled like an egg.
He cracks open an eye, startled. Sam is sitting back on his heels next to the bed, and his eyes are glassy. His nose has gone all pink, and Dean is terrified suddenly because he looks so young. He looks like he’s seven again, hair messy and eyes red-rimmed and little chest heaving.
“Dee, please.” Sammy says again, and he is Sammy , now. He’s Dean’s Sammy, and his small hands shake when he reaches out, fingers bunching in the damp fabric of the motel covers.
He hasn’t called Dean “Dee” since he was ten. It was his first word, a messy “Dee-n,” after months and months of babbling “Dee, Dee, Dee” whenever he opened his mouth. “Dada” didn’t even crack Sam’s first twenty words, much to John’s consternation. “Dee” made an appearance when Sammy was sleepy, when he was ecstatic, when he was scared.
“Whoa, Sammy.” Dean says, shaken down to his core, the soft, desperate parts of him that he’d tucked away. Sam looks goddamn terrified, and Dean’s immediate instinct of ProtectSamAtAnyCost shoots hot and high in his blood. Dean feels stone-cold sober.
“Shut up.” Sam spits, and tears start spilling over his candy-apple splotchy cheeks. It’s not funny, not even a little. “You’re all I got, asshole. Don’t force me to grow up without you, okay? I need you.”
Dean’s sitting up and pulling him into his arms like he does it all the time, like Sam still lets him hold him. He hauls Sammy up into his arms, cradles him like a child, lets Sammy press his wet little face into Dean’s neck. Sam’s hot, wet breath puffs over Dean’s clavicle, over the amulet resting on his chest. Sam curls a hand around it, and Dean has to close his eyes against the sudden sting of tears.
Sam has grown, even if Dean doesn’t like it, and he manages to toss Sam’s thighs over his own so he can hold him better. Sam’s legs are tucked over Dean’s left one, and he weighs practically nothing.
“Hey, hey.” Dean, shushes, running a hand through Sam’s lank hair. “Okay, alright? ‘M sorry. I’ll cut back.”
He presses his face into Sam’s hair, ruffles the strands with the tip of his nose. Sam smells like sweat and motel dust. He must’ve been awake this whole time, waiting for Dean to get back. Guilt gnaws on his lungs.
Sam leans into Dean’s touch, a little too hard, and Dean tastes ozone in the back of his throat as Sam practically head-butts him in an effort to feel Dean’s skin. He’s crying in earnest, now, in a way that Dean hasn’t heard since he was young.
He makes these awful mewling sounds against Dean’s throat, sniffling and hiccuping and smearing snot all over Dean’s collar.
“C’mon, Sammy. Cut that out. Stop cryin’, I’ll slow down.” Dean swears. He’ll promise anything at this point. He just wants Sam’s chest to stop hitching. He’s crying like he’ll never stop, like he’s been building this up in his chest for months and months.
“You’re all I got, Dee.” He says, mouth opening against Dean’s skin. Dean can feel the insides of his lips. Something weird and awkward and hot shoots up Dean’s spine, and Dean has to force his body to remain lax.
“You’ve got Dad, too.” Dean says, too quick. He feels Sam shift in his arms, long lanky limbs ready to shove him away, so Dean adds, “But I’m not goin’ anywhere, okay? Can’t get rid of me if you tried, little brother.”
Sam sniffs. He settles back into Dean’s arms, lets Dean run his hands through his hair, presses his body to Dean’s so tightly that he can feel the sharp bones of his body.
“Promise?”
“Yeah, you’re gonna have to push me around in a wheelchair and change all my diapers when we get all wrinkly, kid. Promise.”
“Only if you change my dentures out,” Sam says, like he hadn’t just lost the last of of his baby teeth, like Dean hadn’t stuck his fingers in Sam’s mouth and tapped each of them when they became wiggly.
Maybe it’s strange to make life plans with a little brother, but Dean’s whole world has been this kid. Sam wants this to be the case, wants to be Dean’s only focus and alright, Dean can do that. Dean closes his eyes tight and lets himself pretend that Sammy won’t ever find a girl, that Dean could be his forever.
“Done.” Dean says. A lifetime of his whiny-ass Sammy? Sounds pretty okay to Dean.
Dean falls asleep to Sam in his arms, beer heavy and drunk, inhaling Sam like he’s just now finally being allowed to breathe.
~~~
“What do you want, Sam?” Dean asks, holding up the two ties he owns. “Blue or checkered?”
Sam wipes his sweaty palms on his slacks, and Dean makes a buzzer sound with his mouth.
“Hands off the goods, Sammy! We don’t have time to wash those again.”
“Shut up!” Sam cries, and holds his hands out to his sides like they’re covered in neon paint. Dean can’t help his smile.
It’s Sam’s first winter formal tonight, and the kid is shaking like a chihuahua that’s got the shits when the mailman comes by. He begged Dean to simultaneously help him get ready and leave him alone forever, but Dean has only been listening to the first bit.
He’s taking Jillian Andrews tonight, and Dean had spotted her in the parking lot when he had gone to pick up Sam. Sam had almost scream-wailed when Dean went up to introduce himself, which in Dean’s opinion is way more embarrassing than having a big brother that cares, but what does Dean know.
Dean holds up the checkered tie. It has a deep green line that crosses through it, and when Sam looks at him with wide stressed eyes (head-on, damn him for growing), it makes them look even more bright than usual.
“This one,” Dean says, shoving it at his chest. “It makes you look the least stupid.”
Sam makes an annoyed huff, and puts it around his neck. Dean turns back around to paw through his bag. He knows he’s got a bottle of cologne somewhere in here. He finds it, eventually, and turns back around to Sam, checking his watch.
“Okay, you’ve got like ten minutes before you head over.” He says, but stops when he looks up.
Sam’s got his fingers tangled in the cheap fabric of the tie, an overwhelmed look on his face as he stares at the bundle of fabric that he’s trying to tie.
Dean snorts, and turns Sam around with a firm hand on his shoulder. He bats Sam’s hands out of the way, and starts in on the knot.
He ties it quickly, and doesn’t even notice how close they are until Sam swallows and Dean’s fingers brush his Adam’s apple. Dean tightens the knot, smoothing a hand down the fabric and over Sam’s chest.
“There,” He says, voice a little thick. Sam’s eyes are dark this close, and Dean can feel his breath on Dean’s cheeks. Dean steps away and clears his throat. He picks up the small bottle he had thrown on the bed and passes it over to Sam.
“You’re sixteen. It’s time to start wearing cologne out—practically a grown man.” Dean assures. Sam loves that type of shit, loves feeling like an adult. Sam eyes the bottle like it’s going to come to life and bite him. He looks up at Dean, shifting on his feet. He bites his bottom lip, and Dean watches the movement.
“Can—Can you do it for me? I feel like I’m gonna mess it up.”
Dean raises a suspicious eyebrow. The last time Sam had asked Dean to do something for him, he was probably eight years old.
“Sure,” Dean shrugs. He pops the cap off and gets back in Sam’s space.
“One here,” He says, spraying it close to the left side of Sam’s neck. His fingers brush Sam’s collar. “One here,” He says, on the right side. He backs up, and for a second thinks that he hears Sam exhale shakily.
“And one here,” He sprays it from about a foot away, and waves his other hand to diffuse the scent.
He likes this bottle of cologne. It was a cheap one, maybe six bucks eighty from the men’s section at a Wal-Mart a couple states back. It proclaims that it’s cedar and sandalwood on the bottle, but it smells like…Dean doesn’t know. It’s what he hopes he smells like, because he didn’t want some crazy unusual scent. This one is simple, like the forest. Like summer nights in Colorado, or springs in North Carolina.
Sam seems to have calmed down considerably, and takes a few deep breaths. His eyes are still big and dark, but Dean just puts that down as last-minute jitters.
“That way, when you’re dancing she puts her head on your shoulder, she gets some of the good stuff,” Dean assures, raising a suggestive eyebrow.
Sam’s face drops a little. “Yeah. Okay.”
Dean’s stomach does a weird, squishy flip at the mental image of Sam pressed to black-haired Jillian in a school gym. Sam hates dancing, but Dean has seen the kid throw down in a field to some CCR from Baby’s radio cranked out and knows that Sam never looks freer than when he’s flailing under the stars.
Dean tosses Sam his suit jacket, clearing his throat and turning away again. Dean doesn’t know what to do with the weird tension in the room. Sam’s been giving Dean all these intense looks lately, like he’s waiting for Dean to talk him out of something.
Dean doesn’t know what that thing could be, since he’s always bitching about doing normal kid things. This is definitely a normal teenager thing.
Sam barely catches the keys when Dean throws them. Not inspiring a lot of confidence, there.
“If you so much as brake too hard, I’m going to fucking murder you.” Dean promises. Sam smiles bleakly.
“I’ll treat her like a princess.” Sam says, sarcastically, and there’s his bitchy little brother. Dean cuffs him upside the head, but makes sure to set his hairdo right with gentle fingers a moment later.
Dean points a threatening finger at Sam as he backs towards the door.
“Not a princess, a queen, d’ya hear me?”
Sam nods, “Yeah, yeah.”
Sam stops by the door for a second. He and Dad had been fighting non-stop the past few weeks. Every time Dean had come home, Sam and Dad were all in each other’s faces, screaming and hollering so loud Dean could hear it from outside. Dean had promised (read: bribed) Sam that he could drive Baby tonight if he could get along with Dad for the rest of their time in this town, and Sam had immediately sat his ass down, legs crossed and smile placid. Smart-ass.
He looks…he looks grown up, now. Dean can imagine what he’ll look like in ten years: grown into his height, strong jaw and sloping nose and sturdy brow. Dean feels helpless, like he’ll never be able to hold on tight enough.
“Thanks,” Sam says, quietly. Dean sticks his hands in his pockets before he does something stupid like pull Sam in for a hug.
“Yeah.” Dean smiles. Sam smiles back, and it dissolves something hard in Dean’s chest. And Sam’s gone. Dean moves to the doorframe and watches him fold himself into the driver’s seat. The Impala roars to life, and Dean mouths Take care of him . Dean feels stupid for doing it. Baby’s always taken care of Sam, whether Dean says it or not.
Sam pulls away from the motel, and flicks his blinker on thirty seconds before he even gets to the pull-out. Dean smirks.
It feels weird, tight and stretchy at the same time. Dean can feel the cord tying him and Sam together get thinner and thinner. He feels like a housewife that just sent her husband off to work, and a mother that sent her kid off to his first day of school all at once.
But he shouldn’t be feeling like either of those things. He should be feeling like an older bother, annoyed that his kid brother took his wheels and hoping that he gets some action tonight.
Dean closes the door, but not before he sees a shaky hand raise in the driver’s seat. A little wave.
Dean waves back.
~~~
“What do you want, Sam?” Dean pleads, grabbing Sam by his forearm. “I can make it happen, I always make it happen. D’you want to move to California? We’ll go with you! I can—I can—“
Sam shrugs him off, hard, and Dean’s arm slams into the supporting beam of the awning painfully. Dean swears, softly, but Sam’s on a war path. They’re standing in the motel parking lot, and Dean can see lights flick on in the other rooms as their fight draws attention.
“Shut the fuck up, man.” Sam spits. “Why do you care, now? You really let Dad say his piece back there.”
“He’s just pissed, Sam, y’know that. He’ll forgive you, give him a second to cool down.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong !” Sam yells, and he’s on the brink of tears. It doesn’t spark anything in Dean, anymore. He’s goddamn pissed. Why does Sam do this, why does he do it every time?
The Stanford letter had been a knife in the back, and Dean was torn between incredulity and panic when he found it tucked into Sam’s backpack. He thought college was just an idea to Sam. But there in his hands was the cool, hard reality.
Sam rounds on Dean when he tries to grab at him again. His face is twisted into a horrible Halloween mask of Sam, and Dean’s ready to wake up any second now.
“I know whose side you’re on, Dean, and it’s never been mine.”
Dean lets the verbal blow land, and it sparks red across his body.
“Eat shit!” Dean spits, and he’s two seconds away from crying. He wants to tear this kid apart. “Why d’you always gotta push him like that? You’re always opening your mouth and starting shit. We could’ve all gone together—“
“I don’t want you in California. I don’t want you anywhere near me. Ever again, you hear me?” Sam whirls, and Dean is glad that he hid all that money in Sam’s bag earlier when Dad and Sam had started their fight, because how is he going to get to California with no money? It’s a bizarre thought to have, but Dean feels like he’s on a tilt-a-whirl, and Dean’s trying to cup water in his hands. It’s spilling away, thrown against walls and spilling down his forearms.
“I’m sick of this life. I’m sick of Dad.” Sam’s mouth screws up like it does when he doesn’t like the taste of something. “And I’m sick of you.”
“Fuck you ,” Dean grits out through his teeth, because Sam’s just stabbed him to death. Sam waits for Dean to say something, but what is Dean going to say? He can’t hold onto a burning bridge, he needs these hands. Sam can’t hold the can of gasoline in his hand over their family and be upset that Dean won’t let his fingers melt in the blaze.
Sam’s face falls, like Dean’s disappointed him. That, somehow, hurts more than any other goddamn thing. Dean’s given everything. Everything. He’s goddamn empty. And it’s not enough.
“Have a good life, Dean.” Sam snaps, and shoves Dean again. Dean didn’t even realize he’d wrapped another hand around Sam’s arm.
Dean lets the shove take him to the ground, even though he’s been wrestling Sam since he was old enough not to hurt him. His palms get scraped on the pavement, and the sparks of pain up his arms feel sharp and grounding compared to the roaring in his ears. Sam starts, jerks like wants to help Dean up and looking shocked that he hit the ground, but his jaw sets and he turns around. Dean lays, sprawled in the parking lot, watching Sam walk away.
It feels like Dean’s world is ending.
It is.
It has.
Dean’s whole life has been Sam, taking care of Sam, tying his shoelaces and feeding him and working to pay for his new jeans and teaching him how to kill anything that wants to hurt him. And Sam doesn’t…want—Sam doesn’t want him anymore.
Dean’s family is gone. It’s splintered. It’s just him and Dad now, and that’s not a family, that’s a suicide pact.
His heart scatters on the highway underneath Sam’s boots. Boots that Dean had worked triple shifts to buy for his birthday this year.
Dean watches Sam walk away until he’s nothing but a speck, until he dissolves into the dark.
And Dean goes to a bar. He doesn’t remember coming out.
~~~
“What exactly do you want, Sam?” Dean demands, shaking Sam’s hands off of him. Sam’s been grabbing at Dean since he walked through that door, sloppy and desperate and clinging.
Sam’s clearly had a few drinks, but he’s not full-tilt drunk. He’s just buzzed enough not to have any qualms about trying to crawl into Dean’s shirt.
Sam looks down at him with wet eyes, and when did he get so close? He’s got Dean crowded against the motel partition, a cheesy motif of crabs and sailboats. A wooden sail digs into Dean’s kidney.
Sam’s breath reeks of cheap beer, and Dean can see a couple bottles behind Sam on the dresser. Dean had gone out for a dinner run, and been accosted almost as soon as he had come through the door. The tacos lie untouched in the plastic bag on the floor at their feet.
Andy and Ansem had really shaken Sam, and Dean’s still pissed that he made Dean reveal that he was scared Sam might end up dark-side. That was his secret to take to the grave, thank you very much. Sam had been shaky and silent the trip up north, refusing to respond to Dean’s jabs and not reacting when Dean finally pulled over for the night. Dean had left Sam with the cooler, hoping that a beer would take the edge off of whatever panic had worked itself into his bones, but Sam has clearly overshot that mark.
It’s not panic that Sam looks at him with now. It’s…desperation. Misery and torment and hopelessness.
“I want you to take me out before I hurt anyone else.” Sam says, more rasp than words. Dean scoffs, and tries to push him off again, but Sam leans further into Dean’s body. “Before I can hurt you .”
He’s got the Please, Dean, I want eyes that he mastered as soon as he was old enough to want anything.
“I’m not gonna do that.” Dean asserts. He’s so sick of this. As early as the Croatoan virus, Sam was so goddamn insistent that Dean should waste him. Sam really doesn’t understand a goddamn thing, does he?
“You could do it, Dean.” Sam insists, and his breath is wet and warm on Dean’s cheeks. He’s so close that his bangs almost touch Dean’s face when he leans down. He’s pleading now, eyes big and voice whining. “I want it to be you, I need—“
Sam swallows heavy, and Dean can hear it. He can feel Sam’s body heat, can see his pulse thunder in his neck. “I need it to be you.”
Dean feels too hot, feels urgent and anxious and antsy. He pushes at Sam’s chest, but Sam captures his hands in his own. He presses them hard against his own chest, and Dean can feel his heart, now. His own heart starts kicking in time, and Dean feels the throb down to his toes. Sam’s chest hitches as it rises and falls. Sam licks his lips, swallows again.
“You’d kill me right, Dean.” Sam whispers, searching Dean’s eyes. His eyelashes brush his cheeks. “Make it sweet. Make it easy.”
He says it like he’s making love to the words, to the idea, and it makes Dean hot all over. Dean can feel Sam’s words in his own mouth as Dean inhales sharply. Kill me right, kill me right.
Horror and a strange intensity pulse all the way up Dean’s spine, makes his head spin. He feels heavy, slow. Sam shuffles forward so he’s got his legs pressed to Dean’s. Dean pushes himself farther into the divider, and winces as a crab pokes him in the ass.
“You’ve…You’re all I got, Dee.” Sam whines wetly, and Dean starts like he’s been electrocuted at the name. What is he doing? This is Sam. Sammy .
Manipulative goddamn bastard, using that word here, almost slotting it directly into Dean’s own mouth.
“Fuck you.” Dean tries to push him off again, but Sam has stuck fast. He’s still got Dean’s hands trapped.
“You’re—You’re mine. Right?” Sam’s babbling, feverish. He sounds like he’ll die if Dean doesn’t answer quick, so Dean is forced to nod. It’s the truth, anyhow. “I’m yours . Yours to kill, please, you gotta. I’m your responsibility.”
Dean’s body goes slack, half-shock and half-awe at his goddamn nerve. Sam had never admitted such reciprocity before, and Dean is furious that this is how it happens. Dean shakes his head, and Sam tilts his head so it bumps against his, stopping the movement.
“This is what I want,” Sam slips his gun from his waistband and his thumb rubs gently against Dean’s side as he brings it up to their hands. He folds Dean’s fingers around the gun carefully, sliding over his knuckles reverently.
He presses the barrel to his own temple, hand wrapped around Dean’s, and leans in so close that Dean can taste his breath on his own tongue. He leans into the gun barrel longingly, like it’s a caress, like Sam’s in love with Dean’s fingers wrapped around Sam’s life.
His eyes are half-lidded, and Dean’s mouth parts despite himself. He can feel his heartbeat on his tongue.
“I need you, Dee. I need you to take care of me. Can you do that?” Sam’s eyes are wide and wet, and his pupils are blown. The tip of his nose is pink, and his cheeks are flushed. He’s panting into Dean’s open mouth.
Dean closes his eyes tightly, and gently moves the gun. Sam exhales, slowly, like he’s sinking into a warm bed. His eyes flutter closed. He leans into the barrel.
When Dean keeps moving the gun away from the side of Sam’s head, Sam’s brow furrows and his eyes open. It takes him a second to register the gun pressed to Dean’s own temple, and his eyes go wide, panicked.
Dean can taste iron in his mouth, wonders if it’s blood. If he’s bitten clean through his own tongue. It’s not, it can’t be, but Dean’s mouth is coated in cold, aching metal. He’s going to be sick. He’s going to kiss Sam. He’s—He’ll—
“I’d rather die. I’d kill myself first.” Dean swears, and it’s so soft in the quiet of the room. His voice feels like it doesn’t belong to him, like Sam is the one that’s speaking in his chest. But Dean’s never meant anything more. Sam’s eyes are red-rimmed, and a tear slips down over his lash line. He shakes his head, sharply, and tries to pulls Dean’s hand back towards him.
“No. No.” Sam repeats, over and over and over again. Dean manages to flick the safety of the gun back on, this time to no resistance on Sam’s part. The gun falls limply to their sides, both of their hands still tangled together over the grip.
“When have I been able to live without you, Sam? Hm?” Dean asks, quietly. He tilts Sam’s head up with one hand, rough and quick. He drops his hand immediately, unable to stand Sam’s skin on his for even a second. Sam’s eyes flick up from their intertwined hands on iron to Dean’s own. His mouth trembles.
“You gotta. You just gotta.”
Dean smiles, knows its bleak, hopes it conveys all the hot urgent panic and empty black hole in his chest.
“We’re going out together, or not at all, okay?”
Sam nods, and his face crumples like Dean has just doomed him. Dean tugs Sam’s head to his shoulder, lets him sway into his body. Dean can feel his tears wet and hot against his skin, feels Sam’s mouth on his collarbone. Sam wraps a hand around the amulet on his chest, and Dean tilts his body up so he can hold Sam up.
“You’re mine, kiddo.” Dean promises, holding Sam against him with his hand in his hair. His other hand trembles on the gun, fingers aching from Sam’s touch. “I take care of what’s mine.”
~~~
“What do you wa—“
It was the heat of the moment, telling me what my heart meant, the heat of the moment showed in your—
~~~
“What do you want to do now, Sam?”
“You’re seriously going to ask me that? You’re the one that’s dying and you’re going to ask me that?” Sam won’t look at him, head in his hands. Dean sits back against the couch. It’s late. They had just been to a roadhouse, and Dean ordered one of those specials that you had to eat in a certain amount of time or it was free.
He had devoured most of it, as Sam couldn’t eat much these days, and now felt vaguely sick. They had left with a free dinner, though, so Dean isn’t too mad about it.
“We’ve done all that I wanted to do.” Dean shrugs. “Anything on your bucket list?”
Sam finally looks up at Dean, tilting his head. Dean waits, and feels a little nervous, suddenly. Sam has an unreadable expression on his face.
Finally, he sits back against the couch and grabs the remote on the coffee table. The cabin they’re staying in has been abandoned for the winter, and it’s luckily got cable.
Sam punches the on button like it slept with his girlfriend, and switches through channels seemingly at random.
Okay, let him be a little bitch about it.
Sam suddenly stops on a channel and stands up abruptly. Dean watches him walk away with a raised eyebrow. He snatches the remote and unmutes it, but it’s stuck on a jewelry commercial right now. Apparently a diamond ring is the perfect way to “ring” in the holidays.
Dean’ll let him sulk. Sam’s been more and more bitchy as the months have gone by, and Dean can kind of understand it. Dean’s at peace with it, he really is, but Sam hasn’t quite reached that yet. Dean still wakes up to nightmares of Sam’s dead weight, of pressing the hard, unyielding skin of Sam’s wound together to stitch it up, even as Sam’s body cooled.
Sam comes back a couple of minutes later, with a bowl of popcorn. Dean smells it before he sees him.
“We’re watching a goddamn movie.” Sam says, and jumps over the back of the couch like a gazelle. Dean jerks back, shocked. Sam sits a couple of feet away, but slides into Dean’s space, like he hadn’t been avoiding personal contact like the plague for the past few weeks.
“How did you even make that that fast?” Dean says, eyeing the popcorn with suspicion. He hadn’t even heard him pop it. This place must’ve been bigger than he thought.
Sam shrugs, popping a handful into his mouth.
“And what are we—“
“We’re back with HBO’s holiday marathon of Die Hard— ”
Dean’s head snaps back to the TV just as a clip of Bruce Willis “yippie-kai-yay-motherfucker”ing Hans Gruber plays. The screen fades to black and fades back in maybe a third of the way through the first movie.
“Oh fuck yes.” Dean hisses, and slaps Sam’s hand away to snatch a handful of popcorn. They tussle, briefly, Dean biting back laughter and trying to shove Sam’s face into the cushions. The popcorn, by some miracle of Sam’s mutant long arms, doesn’t end up all over the couch.
Sam finally pulls the little sibling haymaker, and starts kicking wildly with his legs. Dean has no choice but to back off, and is rewarded for a job well done with a mouthful of popcorn. They settle in, and mock commercials when they come up.
It’s the most comfortable Dean’s been in years, probably.
As the movies go on, Sam leans farther and father into Dean’s side. During Die Hard with a Vengeance , Sam is completely asleep, and is snoring softly on Dean’s shoulder.
The kid only snores when he falls asleep sitting up, much to his embarrassment and Dean’s humor. The bowl of popcorn has spilled, in Sam’s sleep, onto Dean’s lap, and Dean eats the cold kernels with buttery fingers.
He throws an arm around Sam’s shoulder once the popcorn is gone, and moves the bowl to the ground. He turns the volume down.
This feels like home. Sam pressed into his shoulder, soft couch, movie babbling in the background. Safe. Warm.
Dean presses his face into Sam’s hair and breathes deep. He smells green apple shampoo and bar soap and clean sweat. He smells ice cream shoppes and soccer practice and tying shoelaces. He smells baby powder and Bugles and week-old cokes.
His soul for a year. A year with Sam.
It was a fair trade.
~~~
“What do you want, Sam?” Dean asks. He raps his knuckles against the bar, head tilted to the side as Billy Joel pipes in through the speakers. An unlikely choice for the dingy lighting, sticky tables, and ripped velvet pool table.
The stool squeaks horribly as Dean spins it around, and Dean sits down on it gingerly. Sam sidles up next to him, and tosses his long hair out of his eyes as he turns to face the bar on his own equally ragged stool.
Sam holds up a long finger and the bartender slides over. It’s a portly guy in his fifties, that looks like every single bartender from here to South Dakota.
“A double Jack, neat.” Sam says, and Dean can hear how thin and reedy his voice is over the strains of You’re so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need, Though you can see when you’re wrong .
He nods a head at Sam, “Make that two.”
The bartender grunts and moves away.
Sam and Dean are in South Carolina on a case, and Dean’s head has been pounding all day. The rising pressure of Lucifer somewhere, of Zachariah breathing down their necks, has made Dean edgy over even routine hunts.
Sam hasn’t been much better, and he’s been quiet most of the day when not talking to witnesses. It’s why his voice is so strained, and why he won’t look directly at Dean. Dean loosens his tie, and catches Sam watching the movement. He’s been doing that a lot lately.
Dean catches Sam looking at him way more often than usual. Even when Sam is sleeping in the passenger seat sometimes, Dean feels eyes on him. Sam never looks at him when Dean’s looking though. It feels like they’re playing an absurd game of keep-away, and it’s getting on Dean’s nerves.
The bartender comes shuffling back and passes the drinks over the counter. Sam takes the drink almost immediately, and takes a big sip.
And you know that when the truth is told—
“That you can get what you want or you can just get old,” Dean murmurs, before throwing the glass back. Sam turns his body towards Dean, eyebrow raised.
“I’m sorry, did you just know the lyrics to a song that wasn’t mullet rock?”
“You’re the one who bought the damn cassette,” Dean says, rolling his eyes. Sam had bought a Billy Joel cassette at some gas station somewhere back in the tenth grade after he had heard a song at a dance.
Dad had staunchly refused to play it in the Impala when he was driving, but Dean would play it sometimes on car trips after Dad got the truck if Sam begged nicely enough.
Sam doesn’t know, and Dean’s never going to tell him, that Dean would play the cassette in the car to fall asleep when Sam went off to Stanford. Dean had fallen asleep in the car when on his solo hunts, just so bone-weary and lonely to even attempt the regular socialization that was required to stay at motels. He would plug Sam’s cassettes in, every time. Green Day and Billy Joel and Blink-182 would sing him to sleep and Dean could pretend that he had let Sam win tonight and he could hear Sam’s quiet breaths in the backseat.
Dean had even bought ones he thought Sam might like, Good Charlotte and Yellowcard and Death Cab for Cutie, and then threw them out a month later in a fit of pique he had immediately regretted.
“Tortured me with it, really,” Dean says, as Billy Joel solemnly informs Dean for the last time that Vienna will be waiting for him.
Sam snorts. He takes a big swallow from his glass, and a woman over Sam’s right shoulder looks at the column of Sam’s throat appreciatively. Dean knows she was looking, because Dean had been, too.
Dean shoots back the rest of his drink ( Stop thinking about it. Don’t think about it. ), and Sam raises another eyebrow but doesn’t say anything. He hadn’t said anything about his drinking since Dad died. First it was the grief, then the countdown to Hell, then the aftermath of it (whatever got Dean to sleep for longer than a few hours was okay in Sam’s book, apparently), and then the lead-up to the Apocalypse.
Dean raises a finger and taps the rim of his glass twice when he gets the bartender’s attention, sliding the glass forward. The bartender comes and grabs it, shuffling away again.
Another double is slid in front of him, and Dean takes his first drink eagerly.
Sam is gnawing on his bottom lip when Dean looks back, and Dean’s eyes catch on the wet, pink skin. When Dean forces his eyes back up to Sam, Sam is looking down at Dean’s mouth, wet with whiskey. Dean sucks it into his mouth quickly and chuckles a little too loud.
“You’ve got a fan club, Sammy.” Dean says, kicking Sam’s ankle lightly. Sam shifts, looking over his shoulder at where Dean nodded, and Dean can watch the fabric of his suit stretch over his shoulders. They had managed to spring for a new suit after Sam grew post-demon blood.
He had gotten ill, sallow, and sickly after detox but had thrown himself into recuperation more than Dean had seen him throw himself into anything. He had gone on morning runs every day, spent hours and hours doing pull-ups in Bobby’s yard until the skin on his palms had split.
Sam was bigger than he had ever been, and Dean still wasn’t quite used to just how wide he had gotten. Dean yearns, frantically (read: pathetically), for the time when he could tuck Sam under an arm and ruffle his hair.
The girl is what Dean imagines to be Sam’s type. She’s younger than Sam, brown hair pulled back into a wavy ponytail and tan, blemish-free skin. She’s cute, Dean guesses, if he can swallow around the weird lump in his throat.
Sam turns back to Dean and smiles blandly. It doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Nice,” He says, and stares down into the glass.
Dean’s stomach churns. Ruby—that goddamn bitch—seemed to have turned off Sam to other…well, entanglements. Sam, after holding her down while Dean stabbed her, stopped going out to bars for the most part. Dean can’t remember the last time Sam had asked to have the motel room, or slipped out the back.
“You’ve gotta get back out there sometime,” Dean says lowly, already tense and waiting for Sam’s reply. Sam looks at Dean with an unreadable expression.
“I don’t want to get back out there.” Sam says, mildly.
“Why not?” Dean asks, dreading the answer. Ruby ruined more than just Sam and Dean’s trust in each other, the easy way that Sam touched Dean without thinking about it. Dean really hopes that she hasn’t ruined this for Sam, too.
Sam’s mouth quirks into a grin, but his eyes are a little too wide to be casual.
“Can’t I just like spending time with you?”
Dean opens his mouth, then closes it again.
Dean’s not a chick. Sam needs an outlet somehow, right?
And then Dean thinks, you’re also his brother , and that should really be the biggest issue here, right? White-hot something shoots up Dean’s spinal cord at that realization. Sam is Dean’s brother, but he’s also Sam , how could Dean be expected to—
Dean shakes that thought away and scrambles helplessly for another thought. Is it alright? That Sam wants to spend time with Dean?
Duh.
Yes, obviously. Dean had fought tooth and nail, scratched and clawed his way into being Sam’s number one in every town in America. Sam could have girlfriends, Sam could make friends and work at coffee shops and go to movies with guys he met at school, but Dean had already staked his flag in Sam.
They had also never really addressed it.
What Sam’s life had been like post-Dean. There was Ruby, obviously. But Sam had skirted the edges of his life post-Dean, pre-Ruby. That month he had spent alone. And after Dean had come back, their lives had been filled with the secret Sam had been hiding and preventing the seals from being broken.
There wasn’t really time for them to be…well, them.
Had Sam missed him? It was kind of hard to believe that Sam missed spending time with him. Sam had spent so long telling Dean to leave him alone, ducking underneath his arms and telling Dean to fuck off and hopping Greyhounds to Palo Alto. Even post-Stanford, Sam still rolled his eyes at almost anything Dean did.
“Well, I am pretty great.” Dean says bleakly, swallowing hard. Sam snorts, and he lets one of his hands rest on the bar. Dean can’t help but look at it, trace the veins in the back of it. Sam shifts his chair closer, and Dean rests his dress shoe on the leg rest of it, so his body is mostly facing Sam’s.
“Shut up, jerk.” Sam says, a touch of hope lifting the end of the sentence up.
“Bitch.” Dean mutters, and throws the rest of his drink back. As Sam starts talking about the case, Dean can hear the faint words of a song in the speakers above, and really, what are the odds?
—tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial, for what it's worth, it was worth all the while—
~~~
“What do you want, Sam?” Dean asks, cold air making his hands shake against his beer bottle. It’s Sam’s last night alive. Tomorrow, his little brother is going to say yes to the Devil, and throw himself into the deepest pit of Hell.
And Dean’s going to let him. Because he promised, because Sam asked. Because Dean’s just so goddamn tired. Because the world needs Dean to let this happen.
The world can go fuck itself, honestly.
Sam takes so long to answer that Dean thinks Sam either hadn’t heard him or is purposefully ignoring the question.
“You know what I want.” Sam says, looking quickly at Dean and away. He’s holding his beer limply in his hands, and he’s staring blankly out at Bobby’s salvage yard. Bobby had let them sit out on the porch when they said they wanted to look at the stars, but took Dean’s keys from him. It’s probably for the best. If Dean got Sammy in the car, got him out into a field for stargazing, Dean would let the world burn.
He would take Sam and run, whether Sam wanted to be taken or not.
Bobby’s even turned the porch light off, and Dean can see the tail of one of the Dippers reach towards Sam. They’re sitting on the steps, and Dean’s leaned back so the top step digs into his spine. Sam is rigid, back hunched over the rest of his body while his legs splay out in front of him.
It’s not enough—God, it’ll never be enough. But Dean is forcing his peace with it. Is this what Sammy felt like in that last week before Dean’s deal came due? Not exactly like this, obviously. Dean is a bit more invested in Sam than Sam has ever been in him, but even a fraction of this is un-goddamn-bearable.
“Why would I have asked you, then?” Dean retorts, and quickly takes a drink to disguise the tremor in his voice. “That’s a dumbass way to waste my breath.”
Sam snorts, lets the corner of his mouth tilt up, but it quickly dissolves into a grimace again. Sam closes his eyes tight, turns his face away. Dean wants to press his fingers into Sam’s skin, feel the way his muscles move when he winces.
“It’s what I’ve always wanted.” Sam says, finally. His awkward avoidance from earlier is suddenly gone, and he turns to look at Dean. Dean doesn’t know how he does that: flipping from geeky, shy younger brother to this self-possessed intensity that makes Dean’s scalp prickle. His eyes are piercing, but Dean can barely see his face in the dark.
A heavy, tense pause follows his words. Dean swallows.
Sam’s not going to talk about. Because to talk about it now would be cruel, when Dean could only—just for one night—
“A tastefully nude centerfold of Shania Twain?” Dean weakly jabs. Sam doesn’t even blink.
Dean realizes that his chest is heaving, as Sam stares at him. A lock of hair falls from behind his ear and into his eyes.
Things happen all at once.
Sam throws himself up the stairs just as Dean falls forward, scrabbling to get a hand wrapped in Sam’s collar. Sam gets a hand tight in the back of Dean’s hair, so tight that Dean goes a little breathless with it. He leans forward, mouth open, but Sam tilts his chin back, forces Dean to only breathe into his mouth for a second, and Dean can feel that his brow is furrowed against his own forehead.
Sam is tense, rigid, like he’s bracing for a blow that Dean is about to land. Dean’s eyes are slammed shut, doesn’t know if he can do this if he looks and sees the little mole on Sam’s cheek.
Sam smells like beer and the must of old books and drugstore deodorant. Dean has never wanted anyone more.
Then Sam lets go, mouths something that Dean can’t hear, can’t see—but feels , against his lips. Their mouths collide so hard that Dean tastes iron in his mouth as their teeth slam together.
It’s violence, the way Sam kisses him. It feels like sparring in a dust lot, like teaching Sam how to throw punches, like Sam hates him. Sam is stretched forward over three stairs, and Dean is curled over him like Sam has burrowed into his body. Dean bites at Sam’s bottom lip, and Sam forces Dean’s mouth open wider so he can press his tongue against Dean’s.
Sam makes a noise against his mouth, a grunt of annoyance melted into a whimper that makes Dean shiver.
“Dean,” Sam says, a question and a statement and a confirmation, and it’s like the world is back on its axis. Dean kisses the corner of Sam’s mouth, and Sam sags. His hand in Dean’s hair turns into a caress, Dean places an apologetic tongue to the bite.
Dean is already addicted to this, knows he could kiss Sam for hours. Sam’s tongue twines with his lazily, his mouth soft and pliable and warm. Dean tilts his head a little farther, raises the hand bracing him so he can steady Sam’s jaw.
Dean had thought about this for so long that the reality is strange. It feels simultaneously nothing and exactly how Dean thought it would.
Sam tastes like stale beer and faint mint mouthwash. His hair is soft when it brushes Dean’s knuckles. He’s Sammy—Dean’s Sammy—but he’s not. He’s strange and new and this is a part of Sam that Dean’s never been allowed to have. Never a part that he allowed himself to think about wanting. This feels like waking up slowly, every nerve twinging pleasantly as you stretch. This is stepping into a shower after a day on the road, this is the smell of laundry detergent and the feel of familiar sheets and the taste of sun-warm coke and the sound of crickets on a summer night.
Dean’s on fire. After a beer, he’s usually pleasantly warm but it’s like he’s been set under a heat lamp. His legs burn under his jeans, his arms sweat in his jacket. Sam’s a goddamn inferno, and Dean’s going to burn. Dean wants to.
Sam breaks their mouths to breathe, but Dean doesn’t let him go for longer than a second, pressing another wet kiss to Sam’s jaw, upper lip, lips again while Sam pants.
“Wait, Dean—“ Sam says, hand sliding from Dean’s hair to his chest, fingers splayed where the amulet used to be. His fingers curl like he wants to hold it, and Dean’s chest tightens. Sam shuffles so he’s sitting up, on the step below Dean’s. His pupils are blown, and Dean thumbs at his bottom lip, slick with their saliva as he tries to spot the ring of green he loves so much in Sam’s ribbon-thin irises.
“Dean,” Sam says again, fortifying. Dean hums absently. Sam looks close to damn tears, and that shocks something in Dean awake again. “This doesn’t change anything. Y-Your promise. Find Lisa— please. Ben adores you—“
Dean jerks back, shocked.
“Sam —“
“I’m serious.” Sam insists, and he’s talking fast and harsh like Dean’s trying to interrupt him. He takes his hands off of Dean, and Dean lists forward, the lack of skin contact palpable and agonizing. “I—I won’t— do this. If you don’t.”
Dean can only blink at him. Lisa. Ben.
God, would they even take him? Does Dean even want them to? It’s like gifting someone a box of broken lightbulbs. A Dean that could love Lisa is not a Dean that loves Sam like this. And all versions of Dean love Sam like this.
Dean had promised Sam that he would go find them, but it was honestly a toss up between that and swallowing a bullet.
And not even for Dean’s usual self-destructive reasons. Not really. Because Sam is lost to Dean forever if he does this. But Dean…Dean’s Heaven is Sam.
It’ll be lonely, a two-seater with only one passenger, but Dean could hold twelve-year-old Sammy to his chest while fireworks explode and sing Sam Happy Birthday when he turns nine and watch the stars with him forever.
If… When, When Sam does this, Dean is alone, for good. Even if he forces himself into Lisa’s picture frame, there’ll be nothing for him at the end. He’d be a cardboard cut-out of a person. A vortex, swirling depths and nothing of value.
Sam raises a tentative hand and tilts Dean’s face back to his. He bends so he meets Dean’s eyes.
“You’ve got to be happy.” Sam says, so goddamn serious. He looks at Dean searchingly. “What am I doing this for, if you don’t live?"
Dean wants to shove Sam’s hands off, but leans into them anyway. It’s too late. It’s too late to reject anything that Sam will give. Dean wants to crawl into his skin. He wants to fuse Sam to his palms, he wants Sam to rip his ribcage open. God, this is so fucked.
“You’re doing it for the whole damn world, Sam.”
Dean says, because that’s just what Dean’s little brother does. Sammy is a hero. He’s the best damn one of them—Dad, Mom, Dean, Bobby, everyone—all put together. And the world never deserved him for a goddamn second.
Even when he’s wrong, mouth slick in demon blood, eyes furious and mouth spitting venom and hating Dean so much that he rots with it, he is good . He wants to be good .
Dean wants to go back to the beginning, rewrite it all so he never went to pick Sam up from school, let him be happy and oblivious and alive. Dean could wilt away into nothing on his own time, meet Sam at the end of it all upstairs with a beer in his hand. He wants to write Sam a Mom that lived, a Dad that treated him right, a Dean that never existed, a God that cared.
That’s how Dean knows that this Michael-Lucifer business is bullshit. Michael could never have loved Lucifer like this. No one could hold all this shit inside them and not go insane. Michael could have loved his brother, sure, but he didn’t love Lucifer like Dean loved Sam.
It should scare him that if he were Michael and God handed him a sword and said Kill your brother, Dean would have killed God. But it doesn’t.
“Yeah,” Sam says, eyes going soft as his hand falls back into his lap. “Yeah, I am.”
Something ignites in Dean’s lungs—and God, it’s so goddamn unfair. It’s so unfair that Dean wants to kill something.
Dean lets that implication seep into his bones. You’re doing this for the world. Sams fingertips brushing Dean’s, eyes boring into his. Yeah, I am. He’s going to start screaming any second now.
He can deal with a lot at this point. But he can’t—capital W won’t—deal with Sam’s softness, not now. If Sam tries to imply that Sam loves Dean, too—like that, like he’d turn the blade on God, too, if God had pointed a finger at Dean—Dean’s going to kill someone, and it’s probably going to be himself.
It’s too late for them to do anything about it.
It’s too late, it’s too goddamn late.
“Don’t—“ Dean says, just as Sam, fingers on Dean’s bottom lip, says, “Can I—“
Sam’s face falls, and he recoils his fingers like Dean tried to bite them. Dean sighs, rough edges sanded immediately—erosion in fast forward—by Sam’s hurt. Dean’s head is pounding, the car lot is spinning, and Dean feels like he’s going to be sick.
“Shut up,” Dean says, sliding a hand up so he can touch Sam’s neck, so he can cup the sharp bone of his jaw in his palm.
Sam has tears in his eyes, and that’s just cheating. He categorically has never been able to hold his position with a crying Sam. Dean scrapes a nail over Sam’s end-of-day stubble, and Sam closes his eyes tightly and leans into it like Dean is something essential.
“I…I—“ Dean could say it. He should.
I want you. I’ve wanted you. I love you. I have loved you. I’ll love you when you’re in the ground. I can’t do this. I have to do this. I want more time. I need more time. I know what it’s like, and thinking about putting you down there is worse than being there. Kiss me. Don’t touch me. Hold me. Fuck you. I won’t be able to live without you. I’ll exist, but that’s all I can promise.
But…but he’s not going to say any of that.
What would it change?
It’s too late.
“I’ll find Lisa.”
Sam smiles, tremulous, and nods once. His brow is furrowed, like he’s in pain, but he huffs a genuine laugh.
“Good.” Sam’s mouth twists. “Thank you.”
Then he pulls Dean back into a kiss. Dean lets him, pushes Sam’s hair back from his face with hands that have ached to touch him as long as he can remember. Sam’s hands wind into Dean’s shirt, and he half-rises, so he can press Dean against the railing, half in his lap.
Dean has held Sam like this their entire lives.
It feels like a homecoming. It is a goodbye.
Dean doesn’t know what to do. He kisses Sam with everything that he has, hears the beer bottle roll down the steps, and feels beer splash against his boots.
It’s bookmarking an end with a beginning.
It’s a snake eating its own tail, it’s Sam and Dean and Dean and Sam and SamandDean.
Sam kisses a bruise into Dean’s collarbone, and Dean wants it deeper than skin, wants it in his bone marrow, wants a permanent sign that says Sam was here and he was real and I belonged to him.
Dean settles for two hands in Sam’s hair, their stars above them, Sam’s legs pressed against his as their tongues tangle, as their tears soak Dean’s skin.
Sam is here. Sam is real. I belong to him.
What does Sam want?
At the end of all things, when stripped to his core, what does Sam want?
It turns out that Sam wants Dean.