SPN: if all roads were blind (Sam/Dean, NC-17)
if all roads were blind
Pairing: Sam/Dean (Wincest)
Warnings: incest
Summary: They both know what he's about to say, and Dean's been fighting with himself on the issue well before Sam's latest near-death experience. On one hand, Sam is an adult, his hunting partner, and Dean shouldn't be babying him. On the other, Sam is Dean's world, the only family he has left, and he'll be damned if he lets Sam beat him in the live-fast-die-young Olympics that is this life.
Word Count: 10,631
A/N: Set mid-S2. Major thanks to immortal_lights for betaing. This is my first attempt at writing SPN fic and already I'm plotting out a second--this fandom hit me like a semi, I swear. All places described are real, though I took a few liberties with Rittman. Title is from "The Trail's End" by Bonnie Parker.
Sunlight floods through the windshield, making Dean sweat under his collar, and the tight space of the car is too close, too warm. Endless sky and cornfields stretch out in every direction, the utter quiet nothingness of northern Ohio, and Dean hasn't seen a town that's counted in fifty miles. An early morning drive from Michigan to Ohio--easy, simple, but it's mid-March and spring has come out of nowhere as it always does in the Midwest, blindsiding the state with sudden heat when people are still laying down salt on the roads and keeping shovels by their door.
“Think Woodville counts?” Sam asks, looking over. The sun catches his face, lighting up its contours and grooves, and the weariness he carries heavy under his eyes lessens for the briefest of moments. He looks tired in a deep and permanent way most days. Dean doesn't blame him; he carries weight on his shoulders that most couldn't dream of, if they weren't living this life. Seeing it fade away, even for a second, loosens a knot in Dean's gut he didn't even know he had.
“Maybe,” he allows. It's one of the many ways they pass the time; they decide which towns are big enough to be real, they play the cow game (a holdover from their childhood, and Dean still feels triumphant when a graveyard passes by on Sam's side, even if they're not playing), they try to spot license plates from all fifty states. Sam is better at keeping track; someday, they'll get a Hawaii one, but Dean's got forty-nine states and several Canadian provinces by now and he's not holding his breath.
Towns in this part of the state are a great deal of nothing, blink-and-you-miss it clusters of houses and churches. This one at least has a center, stores half on top of each other in one long stretch down the main street. The police station is one tiny brick building, so small Dean is convinced it's an outbuilding until Sam points out that the building behind it has a different sign on it. Two police cars, one parked out front, one at the speed trap outside of town that Dean crept by, furtively glancing in his rearview until it was out of sight. He plays casual, but every time he passes one he gets nervous out of nowhere, a sudden sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Sam knows, because the little bastard knows everything, but he's not a useless waste of a family member because he knows not to say anything.
“It's got a Subway,” he says, bringing his thoughts back. It's not a marker of anything, one chain restaurant does not a real town make, but he and Sam have stopped there before, and it's not too bad. There's a ravine behind the building, sheer and steep, and last time they sat on the hood of the car and looked down, watching the creek trickle by. It was quiet, peaceful.
“So do a lot of places,” Sam says with a snort, going back to the map he's studying. He tucks a strand of hair behind his ears, brushes flyaway bits of his bangs out of his eyes, and Dean bites back the sudden urge to ruffle his hair into a tangled mess. Sam needs a haircut. Dean needs a hobby that isn't harassing his brother. They both need some time off, a week at least. They aren't going to get it, though, so it's a moot point.
“Yeah, well.” They fall silent, Sam tracing his finger over the lines of the highway they're on-Dean thinks it's 420, or 250, or something like that, but can't remember for sure. Maybe they're already on 224. It's all numbers, and he hasn't been paying much attention. He turns up the music, the beginnings of When the Levee Breaks filling the car, and one corner of Sam's mouth quirks up. Dean knows Sam wants to point out that this song doesn't fit when it's sunny-he's oddly pedantic about making sure music fits the situation, listening to this one in rainstorms and Dark Side of the Moon during late-night treks across open country and The Wall during thunderstorms (“Would you just shut up and listen? Some of us don't have these hangups.”)-but Dean likes to make his life difficult by getting it all wrong on purpose. He likes the way Sam's lips purse in silent annoyance. It's a nice change from brooding.
And yeah, Sam's got a right to brood. They both do. Hell, with everything and everyone they've lost, with the way their lives seem to be one clusterfuck after another with a little destruction heaped on top, they would be perfectly justified if they wanted to go curl in a corner and drink themselves into a stupor every night. But there are people out there who need them, and fuck if Dean is going to let his savior complex take a vacation. Never has, never will.
He saves the drinking-into-a-stupor for downtime. It's more practical that way.
They don't talk as the road winds out of town, and for that Dean is stupidly grateful. Nothing but the squeal of guitars and the open road, sun beating down on them bright enough to hurt, and it's just the way he likes things when he's in this kind of mood. Towns blur by, each one the same as the next, and it's peaceful in a way he can't quite articulate. It's hard to let his mind wander in cities, hard to not dwell on the broken-down remnants of life-they don't call it the Rust Belt for nothing-when he wants his mind to be anywhere else. The drive through Toledo took a half hour, construction bringing the world to a grinding halt, and Dean never wants to go that way again if he can help it. The view on 475 brought him nothing but empty factories, boarded-up houses, roads filled with holes and stretches of uneven pavement, and all he could think of was the evil that was surely lurking in the wreckage, the spirits and demons and everything else that took over when the world around them fell apart.
“Ruggles,” Sam says suddenly, and Dean blinks back into awareness. Ruggles is firmly a does-not-count town. Sam counts the houses-five--and the churches-two, and grins, looking at Dean as they speed past. “Think I could have missed it if I blinked?”
“I'm only going seventy,” Dean says, sparing a glance at his speedometer. “Maybe if it was a long blink.” He grins back. Something about the way Sam smiles makes him feel stupidly young again, watching the little kid with big eyes grinning at him like he was the world, and it wasn't far from the truth. He wants Sam to look like that all the time.
It's no secret he's a little stupid when it comes to his brother. Sam is permanently in his blind spot, like if he moves wrong the two of them will just crash together and he'll have to spend the next five years cleaning up the wreckage. Sometimes when he looks like that Dean wants to kiss him.
He tries to tell himself it's a natural response. He may be good at lying to other people, but his own internal bullshit-meter isn't buying it and never will.
He turns away and focuses on the road again.
Nova is the next town, barely bigger than Ruggles, but it's got a gas station and he knows Sam's God-I-need-coffee face like he knows the wheel under his hands. He needs to get out and stretch for a while anyway. They got an early start, somewhere around six AM-Dean wasn't checking exactly, he just knows what bone-deep tired feels like and knows it's what he's going to be for the rest of the day-and maybe there's a case in some tiny town called Rittman in the middle of bumfuck nowhere but it can wait for a little while longer.
He can't see a parking lot when he pulls to a stop, but there's a stretch of gravel a little past the gas station and there's another car parked there, so he figures what the hell, they won't be there long enough to get towed and it's probably not even a town with a towing place anyway. Sam looks at him, one eyebrow raised, and Dean knocks him in the shoulder with no real force, says, “Go get some coffee, bitch,” and Sam grins again. They can read each other easier than anything in the world.
A yawn comes bubbling up inside him and he tries to cover it, face scrunching up, and he probably looks like ten kinds of fool making that kind of face. He doesn't especially care.
Sam's seen him in worse moments, and besides, the desire to make him smile is stronger than his desire to not look stupid. Sam shakes his head, getting out of the car, and Dean follows suit. The doors slam shut in unison. Spending so much time together, picking up on each other's natural rhythms is as simple as breathing. Dean likes it, probably more than he has any right to.
He leans against the car, rolling his ankle right and then left, wincing at the popping sound it makes. He broke it a while back, falling through rotten floorboards in a house that hadn't been occupied in years-by anyone alive, that is-and it hasn't been quite right since. It's a pain in the ass, acts up at the worst times, and all the driving doesn't exactly make it feel like sunshine and roses. Sam knows about it like he knows about his own bad back, aching shoulders, the awkward popping of his knees, but if Dean isn't complaining, he isn't going to bring it up.
Dean only complains about it when he's trashed enough to not give a fuck if he's making Sam guilty, and that's not often. Getting hurt's practically in the job description; if he couldn't handle that he would have gotten out a long time ago. Still, he and Sam have more injuries than your average boxer most days, and between the two of them they've probably broken nearly all the bones in the human body.
Maybe when he dies he'll donate his body to science, he thinks sometimes. It could be educational, seeing just how injured a human can be and still keep going.
When he's done stretching and popping joints, awkward, gross sounds that Sam hates, he turns, watching Sam come out of the gas station, holding two coffees and a bag that's probably full of chips and candy. Dean's recently taken to eating ketchup-flavored chips, as nasty as it sounds in concept, and he thinks he sees a bag of them among the rest. Someday, if they ever get to be old-he doubts they will, will probably die of shock if he ever manages to hit forty-they'll probably have to start at least attempting to be healthy, but for now candy and chips are the staples of the day and it's either that or find a restaurant. Right now, all they've got is the credit cards and neither of them likes stiffing waitresses on tips so that's right out. It's okay, he tells himself. Gas station food has its own fun to it, like when he buys Warheads and dares Sam to eat five of them at once just to see the face he makes.
They're Winchesters. Even if a dare is fucking stupid, they're gonna do it, because Winchesters aren't chicken. Sometimes he regrets this deeply, because that philosophy rarely works in his favor.
Sam ambles towards him, the sun hitting him just right, and Dean curses himself for being such a fucking girl when he realizes he forgot to breathe for a second there. It's not his fault, though; Sam's always had a certain something to him that makes it impossible to look away. Even though he's hunching over, still self-conscious about his height after all these years, he's magnetizing. Dean shakes his head. Alright, he tells himself, you've had your awkward chick flick moment for the day, now get in the fucking car and take your coffee and turn the music up.
Sam's comment about him overcompensating comes floating back and, not for the first time, Dean wants to punch himself in the face.
“Got some food,” Sam says, holding the bag up, as if it isn't blindingly obvious. What else was he going to get in there, kittens and rainbows? Dean bites back the thought, though, and nods, getting in the car with a final crack of his neck. The sound is loud, louder than he was expecting, and Sam makes the most spectacular face Dean has seen all day. He takes a moment before opening the passenger side, and if he's that concerned about all this joint-popping action he's perfectly capable of driving.
He doesn't offer, though. The Impala isn't Sam's baby, and Dean might have his aches and pains, but he isn't old, so he can deal just fine.
The wheel is under Dean's hands again, and he lets out a long breath he didn't even know he was holding. Home, he thinks, and looks over as Sam opens up the bag and takes an inventory of what they've got. Ketchup-flavored chips, those nasty sour candy strips that Sam likes for whatever reason-the rainbow ones, and there are so many jokes Dean wants to make about them he doesn't even quite know where to start-and about half a dozen other assorted things. Sam got the good kind of jerky, at least. He does have some sense.
He takes out a Laffy Taffy-cherry, Dean's favorite-and holds it out, offering. Dean thinks for a moment, and then shakes his head.
“Dude, those things taste frickin' awful with coffee,” he says, waving it away, and Sam shakes his head, tossing the bag into the backseat. It would be impossible to reach again if Sam didn't have such freakishly long arms.
The countryside stretches on, endless and empty, and there's nothing to distract his mind except for the houses Sam sometimes points out. He likes showing Dean the ones that look like they should be haunted-run-down old homes with old-style decor, peeling paint and sagging steps. There's one they'd always pass that's somewhere around here, a route their dad used to take when they were kids, and when Dean talked about “the haunted house” he always meant that one in Ohio. It looked like something out of a bad movie, mid-1800s, peeling and rotten with a big spindly tree that never grew any leaves right next to it. He wonders what happened to it, can't quite remember what road it was on anymore. It wasn't really haunted; he's learned that haunted places hardly ever look like the ones in the movies and the nice suburban homes that don't have shutters falling off are just as likely to kill you as the freaky run-down ones, but it's the principle of the thing.
“You remember that old house we always used to pass?” Sam asks, and Dean is going to sit him down and grill him until he admits that he's telepathic, one of these days.
“What, the haunted house? Yeah. You remember where it is?”
“Nah,” Sam says, shaking his head, a long strip of candy hanging out of the corner of his mouth. If he keeps talking it's going to fall onto his lap, and Dean will spend half his time looking at the bits of powered sour-citric acid, or something like that-on Sam's lips and half the time laughing at him. “I just thought it was somewhere around here.”
“It is,” Dean agrees. “Just not on this highway, I think.” He frowns, trying to remember for the second time today. He very deliberately avoids thinking about their dad again, about watching him from the backseat as they rumbled by that old house.
Forcing his thoughts to take another direction just means he ends up thinking about Sam's lips again, though. He turns up the music further, loud enough to make the car rattle, in the hopes that it will distract him. It's fucking ridiculous, and yeah, they've never been anything even approaching normal, but... well. Sam's wishes for normal include a dog, a house, a girl, a career where he isn't breaking the law sixteen times a day, or at least they used to. Dean's can be summed up with “I think about my brother in a completely platonic way all the time.” The rest of normal can go fuck itself any day, but having a lack of one-sided incest in his life would be awesome.
“Dude, are you trying to lose your hearing?” Sam asks, turning the music down, and Dean tries to wither him with a glare but it doesn't come out quite as determined as it was in his head.
“Nah,” Dean says, speeding up even though the next town is bound to have a cop car laying in wait, gleefully ready to pull him over. “My hearing is always gonna be awesome. Not my fault you can't handle it.”
“Riiight,” Sam says, raising an eyebrow at him, and Dean's mood dips smoothly into annoyed. He strongly suspects Sam is going to take this as a sign that they need to have a Serious Feelings Talk; they both know that when Dean cranks the music like that it's either because he desperately needs a distraction from his own head or he's got a piece of highway where there's nothing for a hundred miles and the speed limit is seventy-five. And sure, there's nothing around here, but this is Ohio, not Nebraska, and there are cop cars fucking everywhere, so it's pretty clear which one this is.
Sam opens his mouth to speak and Dean glares at him with as much force as he can muster, trying to stop the awkward dead in its tracks before it begins, and judging by the headshake and snort that follows, it did its job.
Usually, he's a little more subtle about all this. Sam almost died back up in Michigan though, strangled half to death before Dean showed up, and Dean can try to pretend it doesn't freak him out, but it's not like that will do any good. He has his moments of vulnerability, and nothing brings them out quite like near-death experiences. It fucking sucks. Sam won't bring it up, because he's convinced that Dean overreacts and he could have gotten out without help, but he wants to and they both know it.
“Alright, spit it out,” Dean growls finally. Sam wants to say something so badly Dean can feel it, and it's driving him fucking nuts.
“I'm fine,” Sam says in a voice that's dangerously close to the Feelings Talk one. “You've gotta stop worrying about me all the time, man. I'm old enough, I can handle myself.”
“Yeah, well, let me know next time you're turning blue and can fix it yourself just fine,” Dean mutters, and his fingers are really starting to hurt now. He should probably ease up on his grip already. “'Cause it looked to me like you were getting your ass kicked.”
Sam doesn't say anything, just clasps his hands together in his lap and stares straight ahead. “I was fine,” he repeats, and god, Dean wants to kick his ass six ways to Sunday. If they weren't in the middle of nowhere he'd pull over and... well, okay, they're injured easily enough without him kicking the shit out of his brother, but he'd get in a punch or two, and then-yeah, no, he's not going to take that train of thought anywhere good, so he'd better derail it now.
After a long silence, Sam starts rummaging in the box of tapes, and Dean has to bite back a laugh when he hears John Fogerty singing about being stuck in Lodi again. Sure, it's not Lodi, Ohio the guy's singing about, but the signs he's passing now say Lodi, and it doesn't exactly look like a place he'd be real happy about being stuck in. Sam's trying to cheer him up and he knows it; it's not a bad effort, all things considered.
Sam's smiling again, and Dean really needs to stop thinking about kissing him. Fucking near-death experiences, he thinks bitterly. He really needs to stop letting Sam get into shit like that, because if they keep up Dean really is going to kiss him someday and then Sam will run off and leave Dean to be killed by apple-pie-loving psychos again.
He came back at the right moment, but still. It's the principle of the thing.
The car lurches and Dean swears, cursing Ohio and its shitty standards for road maintenance. He's on 76 now, and it's an interstate, for fuck's sake, it shouldn't have a rumble strip randomly in the middle of a lane or a pothole roughly the size of Montana, but it does, and he might as well be driving down a dirt road for all the smoothness he's getting. He swerves out of the way of the worst of it, but his shoulders are tense, and the sooner he's off this damn highway, the happier he's going to be. His baby is not designed for this kind of abuse.
“We're almost there,” Sam assures him, laying a hand on his shoulder in a way that's probably supposed to be soothing. It really doesn't help. “She'll make it.”
“Fucking Ohio,” Dean grumbles, lurching out of the way of yet another pothole. “Swear to God, Sammy, there better be a real case in-Rittville?” He glances over at Sam, trying to remember. They're all nothing-towns in his book, things blur together a little.
“Rittman,” Sam corrects patiently, eyeing the exit signs. “Middle of nowhere, basically no crime usually, but they've had four people turn up dead in the past week and a half in the same woods. Two couples; first ones had a tree fall on them, second two...” He raises an eyebrow. “Fell down into a ravine and both broke their necks. Think it qualifies?”
“No, Sam, I think there's a sudden epidemic of clumsiness going around,” Dean says, the corner of his mouth quirking up as he glances sideways at his brother. “You'd better be careful.”
*
The job is stupidly easy. Small town like this, the locals are falling over themselves to help. Half of them want to be able to say they helped the FBI with an investigation and the other half contribute just because they love hearing themselves talk. They could have walked in without the pretense of being FBI agents and found out everything they need to know within fifteen minutes, if they eavesdropped on the right people. In the end, it's just a simple salt-and-burn, smooth and painless.
“Practically a vacation,” Dean says, sitting on the curb outside their motel the next morning. He stretches, a pleasant ache in his shoulders that he's come to associate with a job well done, and the sun warms him to the bones. Sam is beside him, rolling a pebble under his foot absently. He doesn't say anything, just watches Dean with a careful eye, sizing him up.
A year ago, Sam would have been grateful to have an easy job. Now, he just looks suspicious, the little shit.
“Practically,” he echoes.
“Aw, come on, Sammy, lighten up,” Dean says, rising to his feet and clapping Sam on the shoulder. “I'm sure we'll be back to getting our guts ripped out in no time.”
Sam's mouth twitches like he's fighting back a smile but he represses it in record time. He's bleary-eyed and rumpled, hair still sticking up at angles from sleep, and the shirt he threw on when he woke up is inside-out. He looks gentle and harmless, the kind of guy old ladies want to give cookies to. Some day when Dean turns around Sam's going to have turned into a gigantic, overly shaggy Golden Retriever. He's already halfway there.
“Dean, we could have given that job to someone else,” Sam says after a long moment, and Dean leans against the door to their motel room, crossing his arms. Sam doesn't look back at him. “Someone who needed the experience. That was the kind of case we used to take back when I was fourteen.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, prickling, “because I knew exactly how it was going to go when I got here. Jesus, Sam, the newspaper reports don't exactly come with a danger rating.”
Sam does turn to look at him then, eyes narrowed. Yeah, Dean's really fucking transparent when it comes to Sam, and he was hoping they could catch a break for a day or two, but it's not like he knew.
“Look--” Sam begins, and Dean holds up a hand to stop him. They both know what he's about to say, and Dean's been fighting with himself on the issue well before Sam's latest near-death experience. On one hand, Sam is an adult, his hunting partner, and Dean shouldn't be babying him. On the other, Sam is Dean's world, the only family he has left, and he'll be damned if he lets Sam beat him in the live-fast-die-young Olympics that is this life.
The two of them have near-death experiences like most people have Tuesdays, so he isn't even sure what his problem is. Sam half-dead in the middle of a Michigan cemetery wasn't much different than Sam half-dead anywhere else, and he really should just be grateful his brother got another reprieve.
Idly, he wonders if nine AM on a day off is too early to get blindingly drunk.
“Come on,” Sam says, kicking the pebble he's been playing with into the middle of the parking lot. “Let's go get some breakfast.” He pulls himself to his feet, brushing off his jeans, and makes for the motel room door. He's probably going to notice that his shirt's inside-out soon. If he doesn't, though, Dean isn't about to tell him.
Sam's declared a truce. He gets that. Their lives are made up of concessions and truces, of subjects to dance around rather than meet headlong. This is just one of many.
Dean carefully forcing himself to look away as Sam tugs the shirt over his head-that's another.
*
Margarita's Rittman Diner is an old-fashioned red building across the street from the police department, second story painted a different color and tacked on like the builders wanted to add a little something extra but didn't have the patience to do anything but half-ass it. The bell jingles, bright as Dean tugs the door open, holding it for Sam without even thinking about it. Several people look up at once.
They're the talk of the town for the moment, and this is why he likes to have a case lined up before they finish the first one. They could have gotten the hell out of Dodge last night but money is tight right now-the only reason they're going out to breakfast is Sam found a five in an old pair of jeans this morning that they could tip with-and so he's trying to be a responsible adult (as responsible as anyone can be living off hustled cash and fake credit cards) and know where he's going when he starts driving.
The sudden bout of Adult Responsibility was Sam's idea, actually. Something about “fifteen miles to the gallon, Dean,” and his eye twitches just thinking about it. They'll get a few new cards soon, but not soon enough for his liking. His favorite alias expires in a month.
Dean orders three different kinds of pork and some hash browns for good measure, and grossing Sam out with his serial-pig-eating habits is entirely the point. Sam tries to be a health freak sometimes but he was raised on canned pseudo-pasta and gas station hot dogs and he'll cave when he sees the ham. Dean hopes so, anyway. He doesn't really feel like eating it.
“Dude, you know there are food groups that include things other than meat and potatoes, right?” Sam asks, pausing in his lecture to nod at the waitress when she stops by the table with their cups of coffee. Dean smiles at her, the charm more of a reflex than anything else, and Sam coughs meaningfully.
“You'll have to forgive him, he's coming down with something,” Dean says easily, and when she walks away he adds, “So, you turning into a nutritionist on me then?”
Sam looks annoyed. It's either the flirting or the pork. Dean weighs the two in his head, trying to decide.
“I just don't take nutrition advice from a guy who used to be obsessed with Spam,” Sam says evenly, taking a sip of his coffee.
“I was nine!”
“Yeah, and I was five, but you didn't see me trying it, did you?”
Their truce is working out well so far. It might even last into tomorrow, if Dean is lucky.
“You ate margarine spread with a spoon when you were two,” Dean retorts, settling back into the booth, leather creaking under him. The fabric is split and there's a bit of fluff poking out, obviously already toyed with by other people. He's still pretty damn tired, because suddenly continuing to ruin it is extremely interesting.
“Anyway,” Sam says, swallowing down his coffee like it's not hot enough to burn his face off when taken in a gulp like that, “we need to find a case.”
“No shit,” Dean says, still tugging at the fluff of the upholstery with one hand. “And here I was, just thinking we were going to sit around all day braiding each other's hair.” He isn't much for post-hunt downtime when it's in the same small town as a case-especially not this kind of small town, where they might as well put up bars and a plaque explaining to passers-by that these are FBI Agents in Their Natural Habitat. Maybe the locals will throw them some peanuts.
He's about to say something to that effect when the waitress comes by with their food, and the smell of gloriously crisp bacon shuts down the rest of his brain for a bit.
“Look,” he says finally, halfway through a mouthful of sausage and hash brown, “I know we're trying to save money, but if I have one more person staring at me I'm gonna lose it.” He's about ready to say fuck it and just start driving. Anywhere will do. It's the off-season-evil never takes a vacation proper but for some reason it's not big on early spring-but it's still not safe to linger until they come across something.
He chews, swallows, and adds, “If we don't find anything by tonight we're heading out.”
Sam sighs. Dean is disrupting his little fantasy of being mature and responsible, he knows, but all they need is a good night at a bar to keep them going if the cards start getting rejected soon. He'd explain this properly if there weren't half a dozen people trying to listen in on their conversation. FBI showing up out of nowhere is one thing, but FBI that are low on money and hustling pool to get by probably stretches the bounds of credibility a little far.
He settles for trying to explain via raised eyebrows and facial expressions. It would be going better if he could keep his expression consistent, but Sam's managed to get a gob of jelly stuck at the corner of his mouth and it's really very distracting.
“Dude, you've got--” He motions, miming wiping it off, and Sam goes for the wrong side. Frustrated, Dean huffs out a noise and licks his thumb before reaching over and doing the job himself.
There's a funny noise somewhere to their left, rather like someone just choked on their food, and Dean suddenly realizes just how awkward this looks. That sudden, nervous-sick twist of his guts comes back in a rush.
“Could we get the check?” Sam asks the waitress, looking away from Dean deliberately. Yeah, weird, Dean thinks, that was probably a little too weird.
“Sure,” she says. She looks between the two of them and her eyes are wide. “I'll be right back.”
*
“I'm not ten anymore,” Sam says quietly as he slides into the passenger seat. Dean lets the keys rest on his lap, fingers drumming out a rhythm on his thigh to keep them occupied. They linger in the parking lot, mid-morning sun streaming in, and Sam sighs, shifting in the seat to make himself comfortable. “You don't have to do-that stuff. Don't treat me like a kid.”
“Aw, Samantha, are you getting embarrassed?” Dean asks, smiling even though his heart's not in it. He starts the car to keep himself grounded, the rumble of the engine soothing like the sound of a heart beating. One hand grips the steering wheel and he looks over at Sam, and something about the expression on Sam's face makes his breath catch. There goes the truce, right out the window, he thinks. He wants to peal out of the parking lot and drive forever, straight into the five hours of flat, rural nothingness that will take them out of the state.
He doesn't move for a long moment.
“Oh for--” Sam reaches over and puts the car into reverse before Dean has the chance to so much as fucking blink. The car lurches and Dean swears profusely, but he gets his foot to the pedal and his mind back on business and he might chuck an empty coffee cup at Sam for it, but he really doesn't mind.
*
Their feet thud heavy on the half-thawed ground, snapping twigs and kicking up loose stones. Sam keeps pace with Dean, holding back because with his longer legs he could outrun his brother easily. Dean's breath comes in shallow pants and he relishes the burn in his lungs, full of a restless energy that threatens to take him over and consume him. He keeps his head forward, muscles shifting and coming alive.
He wouldn't have said anything, if Sam hadn't first, but a run was exactly what he needed. He closes his eyes for a brief moment, taking his mind away from the way his shirt is beginning to plaster against his skin, sweat beading down his chest. When they were young, they did this every morning, like clockwork; as soon as the sun rose John called to him and he, in turn, shook Sam awake. The three of them made their way out to the fields, or the parks, if they were living in the city, and John urged him on when his energy started flagging, a barked order that had both force and proud fondness behind it. In turn, he kept Sammy going, making up filthy rhymes to the beat of their footsteps to make his brother laugh, distract him from the strain of his muscles.
When he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine he's hearing his father's words again, the three of them together, Sam beside him and full of restless young life.
Sam at his side is still a constant presence, the best grounding influence in his world now, and the thud of footfalls is like the roar of the car's engine-safe, familiar, home. God, he's getting sappy, and whatever happened to his usual policy of denial and repression? It's been working for most of his life, the deliberate attempt to not-think about whatever terrible evil has loomed over them this time, be it guilt, desire, the violent uncertainty of the future, or another death.
He's just a little out of sorts these past few days. Nothing a good, absorbing case, a bottle, and a stranger with a beautiful mouth won't cure.
Sam slows beside him, breath coming fast. He grins at Dean, brimful of endorphins that make it come easy, and Dean claps him on the back, says, “Come on, slowpoke, keep it up,” and takes off with a sudden burst of energy. He keeps his pace fast, heart pounding, and yes, this is what he needed exactly. The world seems so much simpler when he rushes past it, roads stretching out behind him and forward into oblivion, and he wonders how he was ever able to stay still. That's what this is, he realizes. Losing Sam would mean stopping his life dead in its tracks, and so this downtime has come exactly at the wrong moment; he has to keep moving, stop thinking, because the reality of the world these days is that Sam is involved in something bigger than the two of them, something terrible, and he's not sure either of them will make it out alive.
Michigan (fucking Michigan and its pissed-off, asphyxiation-happy six-foot-seven spirits with giant fucking hands) only brought that home.
He's halfway through the second loop of the trail when Sam catches up to him.
“Didn't know we were racing,” Sam says, and his face is halfway to to the flushed-red of real exertion. It makes Dean smile, glad for the concrete proof of just how alive his brother can be. He lets himself slow to give Sam a break, halfway between running and walking, and when Sam stops he lets himself do the same.
“Walk it off,” he says, more habit than anything else. Sam nods shortly and the two of them make their way down the trail, letting themselves take in the surroundings as their pulses slow. They were moving too fast before, but now Dean notices the felled trees, the spindly branches not quite ready to bud, the bright electric blue of the sky above their heads. It's too warm, as warm as March gets here at least, but Dean's grown up in enough deserts to prefer the heat to being cold any day.
He reaches up, slings an arm around Sam to ruffle at the sweat-damp hair on the back of his neck. Sam doesn't protest, for once. Dean connects with people on a physical level more than anything else, tries to limit the easy affection with Sam to stop himself going further than he means to, most days, but now and again it's nice to just let go.
“I'm here,” Sam tells him, no louder than a whisper, and in the silence of the woods it still feels too loud. “I'm here, okay?”
“Yeah,” Dean says, and his voice comes out raw. “Yeah, Sammy, I know.” He can't look at Sam, but he feels Sam's eyes on him all the same.
Sam turns then, reaching out, and Dean startles, stops when he feels Sam's hand on him, fingers touching his face, careful and tentative. He's standing so still and Sam is cupping his jaw, expression unreadable, turning Dean's face towards his and studying it. Dean doesn't know what he's looking for. It's strange, too intimate, the two of them together here, away from all eyes, and Sam doing this-he doesn't know what the hell is going on right now but Sam needs to pull away right the fuck now before Dean kisses him. Dean closes his eyes, unable to look at his brother, and Sam is closer now, close enough that Dean can feel the edges of his breath against his cheek.
“I'm here,” Sam repeats, and he lets his hand drop back to his side. Dean can't move for a moment, stunned into inaction, and he doesn't know what the hell just happened. Sam isn't the one who operates by touch, Sam doesn't do things like this.
When he opens his eyes, Sam is looking down, away from him.
“Chick flick moment, man,” Dean mutters, because he never met a silence he couldn't fuck up.
Sam's lip purses and his nose wrinkles in annoyance, the start of a spectacular bitchface. Dean is more relieved than he can say. He's going to have to ask Sam about this later, but for now he'd prefer to keep this strange, quiet Sam at bay. It's making him unsettled.
*
Normalcy creeps back in gradually. When they get back to the motel Dean spreads their guns out on his bed and cleans them, the motions easy and routine. Sam settles down on his own bed, laptop open, and it could be any of a hundred days they spend together. Moments like these are unremarkable. The slide and click of metal and Sam's careful fingers tapping on the keys are the only sounds inside the room, and when Sam slides the laptop closed he doesn't look up.
“I'm going to the library,” Sam tells him. Dean moves to get up and grab his keys off the nightstand, but Sam shakes his head. “It's a quarter mile from here, I'd rather walk,” he says with a shrug, and just like that, he's gone.
Without Sam there, it's almost too quiet. Late afternoon already, the day slipping away like water, and Dean finishes the last of the guns with quick precision. He moves over to Sam's bed after a quick survey of the disaster that is his own and settles comfortably against the pillows, flipping through channels on the shitty motel TV until he finds a music station he can stand.
His stomach growls-they've missed lunch-but getting out of bed requires energy. Instead, he shifts down the bed, reaching out until he can pull his duffel to him. All he's got in there are two candy bars and a half-empty bottle of whiskey, but that will do. He takes a long swallow and it burns his throat, heat shooting straight to his gut. Getting drunk alone in his motel room just reminds him of the months he and his dad spent hunting separately when Sam was gone, and that thought is too depressing for his taste so he shoves it away with another swig.
Long moments pass and there's nothing in his brain but pleased static, a warmth that makes him smile out of nowhere. Outside, dark clouds roll across the sun, obscuring everything, and he watches with lazy fascination as rain begins to pelt against the windowpanes. It's only a one-story motel so he can hear the raindrops as they thud against the roof above him, the distant thunder that promises worse to come.
He startles into awareness hours later, didn't even realize he'd fallen asleep but he's lost three hours and the heaviness of his head has faded to a low buzz at the back of his skull, the halfway place between drunk and sober. His eyes feel sticky and crusted when they open and he rubs at them, trying to come back to himself. Sam, he thinks suddenly, and that low gut-twist of nerves stabs him out of nowhere. Sam's not back yet. It's almost eight o'clock and the rain has gentled into a light spray, but there's no sign of his brother, no indication that he's been back to the room.
Maybe Sam is still at the library. There's a good chance of it-he's king of the geeks and if he could sleep on a bed made entirely of books he would-but even if he is, he'll give Dean hell if he has to walk back in the rain.
Dean swings out of bed, fast enough to give himself a headrush, and he swears, steadying himself with one hand on the nightstand. Sam is probably fine, he tells himself sternly as he gets to his feet. Sam is probably lost in a book and has no idea his brother passed out drunk and woke up paranoid. Sam has not been kidnapped, or eaten, or arrested for being a freak.
Probably.
One of the worst parts about knowing exactly what lurks in the dark, though, is being able to mentally list twenty different ways in which Sam could be dead in a ditch in under a minute. A minute later, after Dean has called Sam's phone and gotten voicemail, he adds another twenty-five.
“Son of a bitch,” Dean says, with feeling, and gets to the car in record time.
*
It's too quiet. Dean feels like an idiot for even thinking that, because it's a library, for fuck's sake, but the point still stands. There's a librarian at the front desk who looks bone-tired and she doesn't even look up as he passes, but apart from that he can see no one else.
Row after row of nothing but dim light and endless books, the fluorescent lighting buzzing loud enough to set his teeth on edge, and even his own footsteps feel too loud as he makes his way towards the back. The library closes in an hour; it feels already closed, too empty. He makes his way to the second floor, taking the stairs two at a time, and his heart is starting to thud heavy in his chest.
In a far corner, the already-dim lights flicker, and it takes Dean a moment to realize the figure half-hidden in shadow isn't just in his imagination. Sam's sitting sprawled out on the cheap carpet, one hand inside a book to hold his place as he looks out the window. He watches the rain patter against the glass, silent and peaceful. Dean wants to yell, wants to walk up and shake the hell out of him, but it would break the stillness in the air so he just takes a deep breath and makes his way forward.
“Hey, Dean,” Sam says, looking up. One corner of his mouth quirks up in a smile.
“Hey,” Dean says, trying to calm his frayed nerves. “What are you reading?” He settles down onto the carpet beside Sam, resting on his heels.
Sam holds up the book title-forward for inspection, and Dean huffs out a laugh. The Vulgate. Of course. Of course Sam is reading the Bible in fourth-century Latin. Jesus, his brother really is a geek, though he does have to admit Revelations (or, well, Apocalypsis Iohannis) is one of the more interesting books.
Yeah, he's read the whole thing (though he skipped all the “so and so begat” parts in favor of the sexy ones). Blame Pastor Jim for that one.
“You didn't answer your phone,” he says finally. His voice is steadier than he expected it to be.
Sam blinks at him, the dazed stare of one who has been deeply lost in thought (or books) for the better part of an afternoon. “It's on silent,” he says, shifting to tug it out of his pocket. “It's eight already?” He stares down at the display.
“Yeah,” Dean says, scowling. “It's eight, and I think you're the only one who's still here.”
“You could have gotten me earlier,” Sam says, and then he leans closer to Dean, close enough to startle him. His takes in the sleep-rumpled mess of Dean's hair, the smell on his breath, and he snorts. “Had to wait until you sobered up, huh?”
“I could have made you walk back in the rain, bitch. I'm doing you a favor.”
He wouldn't have, and they both know it.
“Were you worried about me? Again?” Sam asks after a long silence, still too close to him. Dean settles for staring at his knees; it's that or Sam's mouth, and goddamnit, he is not drunk enough for this. He knows Sam wants to ask, “why now?” Why now, after everything they've been through, after they've both had enough close calls to lose count-why is this different? Dean doesn't really know the answer to that. Maybe he's just hit a breaking point. It had to happen someday. Sam's right in the middle of a whirlwind of bad, has been for a while, and Dean is so tired of holding onto his brother's life by nothing but a thread.
“You were gone and you didn't answer your phone,” Dean mutters. “It's not like you've got a great track record with the whole 'randomly disappearing' thing.”
“I said I was going to the library and I was at the library. Jesus, Dean, are you going to try and give me a curfew or something?”
Dean closes his eyes, trying to will himself back into intoxication. “Goddamnit, Sam, just--”
“Just what? I'm not a kid anymore, I can handle myself.”
“You think that's why I'm worried? I know you're not a kid, but you're still my little brother, I have to look out for you. If something happened to you--”
“What, it'd be your fault?” Sam sets the book down with a heavy thud. “I'm here. I'm here, I'm alive, and I'm not going anywhere. I don't know how the hell you want me to prove that to you.”
“I don't know,” Dean admits, quiet. “Look, I'm being pretty fucking stupid about this, I get that, but you're still all I've got, and--”
Sam cuts him off. “Who else do you think I have?” he asks sharply, and Dean turns his head to look at his brother, really look at him. They're nearly nose-to-nose. Dean bites his lip, eyes flicking downwards, and Sam isn't moving.
“Dean, look at me,” Sam says, and Dean has never been able to go against a direct order. There's something odd in Sam's voice, his tone caught between determined and absolutely terrified, and when he forces himself to look upwards again Sam's mouth is set in a thin line and his shoulders are tense. “I'm not going anywhere. I know this is about way more than just that case, but I can take care of myself and you worried just turns into you taking stupid risks for me. I don't want that and-just. Shit.” He closes his eyes, ducks his head for a moment and takes a deep breath. “Don't punch me for this, okay?”
Dean is about to ask for what when Sam reaches out, cups his jaw, and crushes their mouths together in a fierce kiss. The bottom drops out of Dean's stomach like he's just fallen off a cliff. He should pull away. He knows he should pull away, but good sense has left the building, and instead he's threading his fingers into Sam's hair and pulling him closer. He opens his mouth against Sam's, and the kiss shifts, suddenly full of insistent heat, Sam's tongue in his mouth, Sam's hands fisted tight in the fabric of his shirt, not letting him go for an instant. Dean feels a low, insistent throb of arousal, shifting against it as Sam presses closer to him.
“Dean,” Sam says weakly against his lips, and it's half plead, half moan. Dean jerks back like Sam just punched him. Reality comes flooding back in an instant. They're in the middle of a library, they're in public, this is really weird.
“We--” he starts, and he means to voice the obligatory objections-you're not thinking straight, wrong, illegal, etcetera-and what comes out of his mouth is, “Do you really want the librarian perving on us?”
Sam actually laughs. It's weak and nervous but it's still a sound Dean wants to hear more of. His heart is pounding and he thinks he's maybe a little dizzy, still buzzed. Sam kissed him. He doesn't know why the hell Sam kissed him-and then he gets it in a rush of sudden clarity. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere. He navigates his world by touch and physicality and Sam knows this; Sam is proving to Dean that he's alive and present in a way Dean can't misunderstand.
“Is this okay?” Sam asks quickly, looking away from him like he can't quite bring himself to meet Dean's eyes when he asks.
“Yeah. Jesus, Sam, yeah, if it's okay with you.” He stands, reaches out a hand to pull Sam to his feet.
“It's been okay with me for years,” Sam says, and oh thank fuck, they're on the same page here.
“Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “Yeah, me too.”
Sam grins, sudden and blinding like stepping into blazing midday sun, and he says, “C'mon then.”
Dean doesn't have anything in the world he can say in response besides yes, so he just lets Sam pin him to the stacks, one leg pressed up between his thighs as Sam leans in again, cupping the side of his face as he lowers his head for another kiss. It grows heated, Sam's hand sliding up to grip his hair tight enough to hurt, Sam biting at his lower lip until it aches, marking him up, teeth sinking in at the sensitive points of his neck, and Sam knows everything about him, so of course Sam knows exactly where to touch, knows Dean's body almost as well as his own. He lets go of Dean's hair to slide a hand under his shirt, tracing over sensitive skin, and Dean shivers against him, groaning into the kiss, letting his little brother take anything he wants. Sam's teeth on him hurt, and he's not much into pain, but the thought of the marks he'll be seeing tomorrow are enough to make him hard enough to hurt, and when Sam presses in again he can feel Sam hard against his thigh, in answer, response.
“Dude. In public, librarian probably perving right now,” Dean manages, and Sam's laugh is about five seconds from an honest-to-God giggle when he lets Dean go. He's going to be able to make Samantha jokes for a month based on that sound alone, and if he didn't want to push Sam down to the ground right now and put his mouth all over him he'd be able to feel a lot more smug about it.
“Come on then,” Sam says, and Dean is so out of it that he doesn't even notice Sam nicking his car keys until he sees them wound around Sam's finger. “Motel.”
*
They're silent on the drive back, but it's not the kind of silence that needs to be broken by declarations or arguments; Dean knows as well as Sam does that if either of them say a word before they make it back they're going to end up going no further than the backseat. Sam keeps stealing glances at him, dark-eyed and heated, and Jesus, Dean did not think his day was going to end like this. He wouldn't have seen it coming in a million years, and he has to breathe deep and look away, focus on the dips and curves and bumps of the road or he's going to get carried away. The rain has stopped but the night is absolute in its darkness, no moon at all, and the closer they get to the motel, the more the world seems to fade away until the only thing that seems real is his brother beside him.
“Come on,” Sam says as they park the car, and Dean wants to laugh, because that's exactly the kind of tone Sam used to use when they were younger and Sam wanted Dean to double-check the dark corners of the room with him, only his voice is different, deeper. It should probably give him cold feet, that thought, but God help him, it doesn't seem to matter.
They never make it to the bed, the first time. Sam has him pressed up against the door the second they get inside, hands sliding fast over him, tugging up his shirt, and Dean lets his head tip back, panting, staring up at the cracked plaster ceiling as Sam's mouth leaves wet trails on his chest. He wants to touch, wants to get his hands all over Sam, and he tugs Sam's shirts off with vicious quickness, pressing back against him as soon as it's done, chest to bare chest with only his amulet in between.
“Dean,” Sam murmurs, and it's fervent, like a prayer, kissing him again like it's the only thing he wants to do for the rest of his life. Dean loses himself in it, Sam's slick lips against his, Sam's hands on his skin, reaching down until he gets a hold of Dean's belt, and Dean doesn't even have time to think before Sam's stripped him entirely, those big, rough hands wrapping around him, and he arches up for it, any coherent thought in his mind turning to mindless babble as Sam thumbs over the head, spreading slickness, and he's got fingernails digging into the skin of Sam's back, now, raking down. Sam shudders and works him faster and Dean grins, even if it's a little strained, digging his nails in harder now that he knows Sam likes that.
“Fuck, Sammy,” Dean gasps, and he can already feel his orgasm building, undeniable pleasure rushing up in him. He tries to hold off longer, tries to make it last, but then Sam leans in and whispers, “Gonna come for me, big brother?” and jesus fuck, Sam is a sick, kinky bastard and Dean loves it. He comes all over Sam's hand and himself, eyes squeezing shut against the sudden onrush of feeling, almost dizzy with it.
Sam strokes him through the aftershocks and Dean doesn't even hesitate; as soon as Sam lets him go he spins the two of them, pressing Sam against the door, and drops to his knees. He'd have the I'm-not-gay mental battle, but this is Sam, and Sam doesn't count, and Sam is looking down at him with pupils blown, his face red and flushed, and fuck it, any and all internal freakouts are officially on hold because Dean is doing this now.
As he expected, Sam is a pushy bastard about this, too; he parts his lips, takes Sam in, and Sam's fingers wind into his hair, pulling him forward until his jaw aches and he can't breathe, not all the way down but further than he thought he could take. He brings a hand up to Sam's hip, the other wrapping around the base of Sam's cock. Sam makes a noise that doesn't even sound quite human, and Dean has to press Sam harder into the door to keep his hips from snapping forward. His nails dig into the sharp spike of Sam's hipbone and he slides off slickly before pushing down again. When he can bring himself to look up at his brother, Sam is staring at him, eyes dazed and disbelieving and so fucking hot Dean could probably come from it alone, if he hadn't just already.
Dean doesn't know what the hell he's doing, but Sam guides his head, pulls him off a little and then lets his hips jerk, and Dean's mouth already feels well-used but he lets Sam, moves his hand and lets Sam fuck his mouth, shallow enough that he can take it. He's not gay, yeah, but this is the hottest fucking thing he's ever done, and he can't bring himself to pull away even when Sam gives him warning, a sound that's probably meant to be his name but comes out more of a groan, fingers tightening in his hair. Sam comes, near-silent but his head is thrown back and his mouth is open and he looks fifteen different kinds of pornographic. Dean doesn't like the taste, but it's Sam, and Sam just came in his mouth, holy shit, and if his tastebuds can cope with the shitty beer he drinks on a regular basis they can handle this just fine.
“Fuck, Dean,” Sam breathes, drawing him back when he gets too sensitive. “Come here.” He pulls Dean up to his feet, drags him into a kiss, and they collapse onto the nearest bed, only breaking the kiss when Dean makes a startled sound at the impact. Sam is on top of him, heavy and sudden, and he laughs without even quite knowing why. It's just-it's Sam, and Sam looks stupidly content, and he did that. He feels good enough that he doesn't even care about Sam's cuddly tendencies, just breathes out, enjoying the press of skin on skin.
“Don't freak out in the morning, okay?” Sam asks, eyeing him, and Dean stares. He isn't sure whether Sam telling him not to freak out, after, is hilarious or just plain weird.
“Well, one of us should,” he says, and he's not even sure why that came out of his mouth. He's still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but then again, maybe both shoes have been on the floor the whole time.
“Nah,” Sam says simply, pulling Dean closer to him. Jesus, the kid's like a six-foot-five octopus, possibly with more limbs than that, and Dean doesn't have a prayer of getting free. He resigns himself to cuddling and hopes to God Sam doesn't drool on him in his sleep. He used to, when they were kids; maybe he's grown out of it.
“Where do you want to go tomorrow?” Dean asks, eyelids heavy with sleep, and Sam's hand runs down his back, smooth and slow, making him squirm.
“South,” he says decisively. “Less cornfields. Found a case in Tennessee, I'll tell you about it in the morning.”
Dean grins. “Gotta get through most of Ohio if we're going south, man,” he points out. “Whole lotta cornfields on the way.”
“Long as we get out,” Sam says, half-heartedly stifling a yawn. “I've had enough Midwest for a while.”
Dean kinda likes the Midwest, but he isn't about to argue, and he lets himself drift with Sam, fading out into sleep.
In the morning, they take the 71 south out of town, Dean swearing as they navigate the four lanes of early-morning traffic. The sun is starting to peek out above the horizon, and it casts a soft light on the world, a gentling influence even among the chaos of bumper-to-bumper traffic and car horns. Dean turns up the music and breathes deep, one hand on the wheel and one hand at the ready to flip off other drivers. Sam laughs at him, the bitch, and drinks half of Dean's coffee while Dean is distracted. As they fly past the cornfields and rolling hills, losing the traffic forty miles in, Dean realizes the tension in him has gone completely, leaving only a pleasant warmth in its place. He really should have a problem with this. He should at least care that this is wrong (by normal societal standards, which they are terrible at) and illegal (though they're wanted criminals already).
Sam's grin comes easier today, though, and that one, tiny thing makes him not regret the night for an instant. Sam is alive and happy and here, and that's all he needs.
“You know, supposedly there's a phantom hitchhiker on 71,” Sam says casually, watching the road.
Dean turns down the music. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, giving him a sideways glance and a smile.
Despite all odds, life is pretty good right now. Dean smiles back and lets himself relax into the seat, listening.
Pairing: Sam/Dean (Wincest)
Warnings: incest
Summary: They both know what he's about to say, and Dean's been fighting with himself on the issue well before Sam's latest near-death experience. On one hand, Sam is an adult, his hunting partner, and Dean shouldn't be babying him. On the other, Sam is Dean's world, the only family he has left, and he'll be damned if he lets Sam beat him in the live-fast-die-young Olympics that is this life.
Word Count: 10,631
A/N: Set mid-S2. Major thanks to immortal_lights for betaing. This is my first attempt at writing SPN fic and already I'm plotting out a second--this fandom hit me like a semi, I swear. All places described are real, though I took a few liberties with Rittman. Title is from "The Trail's End" by Bonnie Parker.
Sunlight floods through the windshield, making Dean sweat under his collar, and the tight space of the car is too close, too warm. Endless sky and cornfields stretch out in every direction, the utter quiet nothingness of northern Ohio, and Dean hasn't seen a town that's counted in fifty miles. An early morning drive from Michigan to Ohio--easy, simple, but it's mid-March and spring has come out of nowhere as it always does in the Midwest, blindsiding the state with sudden heat when people are still laying down salt on the roads and keeping shovels by their door.
“Think Woodville counts?” Sam asks, looking over. The sun catches his face, lighting up its contours and grooves, and the weariness he carries heavy under his eyes lessens for the briefest of moments. He looks tired in a deep and permanent way most days. Dean doesn't blame him; he carries weight on his shoulders that most couldn't dream of, if they weren't living this life. Seeing it fade away, even for a second, loosens a knot in Dean's gut he didn't even know he had.
“Maybe,” he allows. It's one of the many ways they pass the time; they decide which towns are big enough to be real, they play the cow game (a holdover from their childhood, and Dean still feels triumphant when a graveyard passes by on Sam's side, even if they're not playing), they try to spot license plates from all fifty states. Sam is better at keeping track; someday, they'll get a Hawaii one, but Dean's got forty-nine states and several Canadian provinces by now and he's not holding his breath.
Towns in this part of the state are a great deal of nothing, blink-and-you-miss it clusters of houses and churches. This one at least has a center, stores half on top of each other in one long stretch down the main street. The police station is one tiny brick building, so small Dean is convinced it's an outbuilding until Sam points out that the building behind it has a different sign on it. Two police cars, one parked out front, one at the speed trap outside of town that Dean crept by, furtively glancing in his rearview until it was out of sight. He plays casual, but every time he passes one he gets nervous out of nowhere, a sudden sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Sam knows, because the little bastard knows everything, but he's not a useless waste of a family member because he knows not to say anything.
“It's got a Subway,” he says, bringing his thoughts back. It's not a marker of anything, one chain restaurant does not a real town make, but he and Sam have stopped there before, and it's not too bad. There's a ravine behind the building, sheer and steep, and last time they sat on the hood of the car and looked down, watching the creek trickle by. It was quiet, peaceful.
“So do a lot of places,” Sam says with a snort, going back to the map he's studying. He tucks a strand of hair behind his ears, brushes flyaway bits of his bangs out of his eyes, and Dean bites back the sudden urge to ruffle his hair into a tangled mess. Sam needs a haircut. Dean needs a hobby that isn't harassing his brother. They both need some time off, a week at least. They aren't going to get it, though, so it's a moot point.
“Yeah, well.” They fall silent, Sam tracing his finger over the lines of the highway they're on-Dean thinks it's 420, or 250, or something like that, but can't remember for sure. Maybe they're already on 224. It's all numbers, and he hasn't been paying much attention. He turns up the music, the beginnings of When the Levee Breaks filling the car, and one corner of Sam's mouth quirks up. Dean knows Sam wants to point out that this song doesn't fit when it's sunny-he's oddly pedantic about making sure music fits the situation, listening to this one in rainstorms and Dark Side of the Moon during late-night treks across open country and The Wall during thunderstorms (“Would you just shut up and listen? Some of us don't have these hangups.”)-but Dean likes to make his life difficult by getting it all wrong on purpose. He likes the way Sam's lips purse in silent annoyance. It's a nice change from brooding.
And yeah, Sam's got a right to brood. They both do. Hell, with everything and everyone they've lost, with the way their lives seem to be one clusterfuck after another with a little destruction heaped on top, they would be perfectly justified if they wanted to go curl in a corner and drink themselves into a stupor every night. But there are people out there who need them, and fuck if Dean is going to let his savior complex take a vacation. Never has, never will.
He saves the drinking-into-a-stupor for downtime. It's more practical that way.
They don't talk as the road winds out of town, and for that Dean is stupidly grateful. Nothing but the squeal of guitars and the open road, sun beating down on them bright enough to hurt, and it's just the way he likes things when he's in this kind of mood. Towns blur by, each one the same as the next, and it's peaceful in a way he can't quite articulate. It's hard to let his mind wander in cities, hard to not dwell on the broken-down remnants of life-they don't call it the Rust Belt for nothing-when he wants his mind to be anywhere else. The drive through Toledo took a half hour, construction bringing the world to a grinding halt, and Dean never wants to go that way again if he can help it. The view on 475 brought him nothing but empty factories, boarded-up houses, roads filled with holes and stretches of uneven pavement, and all he could think of was the evil that was surely lurking in the wreckage, the spirits and demons and everything else that took over when the world around them fell apart.
“Ruggles,” Sam says suddenly, and Dean blinks back into awareness. Ruggles is firmly a does-not-count town. Sam counts the houses-five--and the churches-two, and grins, looking at Dean as they speed past. “Think I could have missed it if I blinked?”
“I'm only going seventy,” Dean says, sparing a glance at his speedometer. “Maybe if it was a long blink.” He grins back. Something about the way Sam smiles makes him feel stupidly young again, watching the little kid with big eyes grinning at him like he was the world, and it wasn't far from the truth. He wants Sam to look like that all the time.
It's no secret he's a little stupid when it comes to his brother. Sam is permanently in his blind spot, like if he moves wrong the two of them will just crash together and he'll have to spend the next five years cleaning up the wreckage. Sometimes when he looks like that Dean wants to kiss him.
He tries to tell himself it's a natural response. He may be good at lying to other people, but his own internal bullshit-meter isn't buying it and never will.
He turns away and focuses on the road again.
Nova is the next town, barely bigger than Ruggles, but it's got a gas station and he knows Sam's God-I-need-coffee face like he knows the wheel under his hands. He needs to get out and stretch for a while anyway. They got an early start, somewhere around six AM-Dean wasn't checking exactly, he just knows what bone-deep tired feels like and knows it's what he's going to be for the rest of the day-and maybe there's a case in some tiny town called Rittman in the middle of bumfuck nowhere but it can wait for a little while longer.
He can't see a parking lot when he pulls to a stop, but there's a stretch of gravel a little past the gas station and there's another car parked there, so he figures what the hell, they won't be there long enough to get towed and it's probably not even a town with a towing place anyway. Sam looks at him, one eyebrow raised, and Dean knocks him in the shoulder with no real force, says, “Go get some coffee, bitch,” and Sam grins again. They can read each other easier than anything in the world.
A yawn comes bubbling up inside him and he tries to cover it, face scrunching up, and he probably looks like ten kinds of fool making that kind of face. He doesn't especially care.
Sam's seen him in worse moments, and besides, the desire to make him smile is stronger than his desire to not look stupid. Sam shakes his head, getting out of the car, and Dean follows suit. The doors slam shut in unison. Spending so much time together, picking up on each other's natural rhythms is as simple as breathing. Dean likes it, probably more than he has any right to.
He leans against the car, rolling his ankle right and then left, wincing at the popping sound it makes. He broke it a while back, falling through rotten floorboards in a house that hadn't been occupied in years-by anyone alive, that is-and it hasn't been quite right since. It's a pain in the ass, acts up at the worst times, and all the driving doesn't exactly make it feel like sunshine and roses. Sam knows about it like he knows about his own bad back, aching shoulders, the awkward popping of his knees, but if Dean isn't complaining, he isn't going to bring it up.
Dean only complains about it when he's trashed enough to not give a fuck if he's making Sam guilty, and that's not often. Getting hurt's practically in the job description; if he couldn't handle that he would have gotten out a long time ago. Still, he and Sam have more injuries than your average boxer most days, and between the two of them they've probably broken nearly all the bones in the human body.
Maybe when he dies he'll donate his body to science, he thinks sometimes. It could be educational, seeing just how injured a human can be and still keep going.
When he's done stretching and popping joints, awkward, gross sounds that Sam hates, he turns, watching Sam come out of the gas station, holding two coffees and a bag that's probably full of chips and candy. Dean's recently taken to eating ketchup-flavored chips, as nasty as it sounds in concept, and he thinks he sees a bag of them among the rest. Someday, if they ever get to be old-he doubts they will, will probably die of shock if he ever manages to hit forty-they'll probably have to start at least attempting to be healthy, but for now candy and chips are the staples of the day and it's either that or find a restaurant. Right now, all they've got is the credit cards and neither of them likes stiffing waitresses on tips so that's right out. It's okay, he tells himself. Gas station food has its own fun to it, like when he buys Warheads and dares Sam to eat five of them at once just to see the face he makes.
They're Winchesters. Even if a dare is fucking stupid, they're gonna do it, because Winchesters aren't chicken. Sometimes he regrets this deeply, because that philosophy rarely works in his favor.
Sam ambles towards him, the sun hitting him just right, and Dean curses himself for being such a fucking girl when he realizes he forgot to breathe for a second there. It's not his fault, though; Sam's always had a certain something to him that makes it impossible to look away. Even though he's hunching over, still self-conscious about his height after all these years, he's magnetizing. Dean shakes his head. Alright, he tells himself, you've had your awkward chick flick moment for the day, now get in the fucking car and take your coffee and turn the music up.
Sam's comment about him overcompensating comes floating back and, not for the first time, Dean wants to punch himself in the face.
“Got some food,” Sam says, holding the bag up, as if it isn't blindingly obvious. What else was he going to get in there, kittens and rainbows? Dean bites back the thought, though, and nods, getting in the car with a final crack of his neck. The sound is loud, louder than he was expecting, and Sam makes the most spectacular face Dean has seen all day. He takes a moment before opening the passenger side, and if he's that concerned about all this joint-popping action he's perfectly capable of driving.
He doesn't offer, though. The Impala isn't Sam's baby, and Dean might have his aches and pains, but he isn't old, so he can deal just fine.
The wheel is under Dean's hands again, and he lets out a long breath he didn't even know he was holding. Home, he thinks, and looks over as Sam opens up the bag and takes an inventory of what they've got. Ketchup-flavored chips, those nasty sour candy strips that Sam likes for whatever reason-the rainbow ones, and there are so many jokes Dean wants to make about them he doesn't even quite know where to start-and about half a dozen other assorted things. Sam got the good kind of jerky, at least. He does have some sense.
He takes out a Laffy Taffy-cherry, Dean's favorite-and holds it out, offering. Dean thinks for a moment, and then shakes his head.
“Dude, those things taste frickin' awful with coffee,” he says, waving it away, and Sam shakes his head, tossing the bag into the backseat. It would be impossible to reach again if Sam didn't have such freakishly long arms.
The countryside stretches on, endless and empty, and there's nothing to distract his mind except for the houses Sam sometimes points out. He likes showing Dean the ones that look like they should be haunted-run-down old homes with old-style decor, peeling paint and sagging steps. There's one they'd always pass that's somewhere around here, a route their dad used to take when they were kids, and when Dean talked about “the haunted house” he always meant that one in Ohio. It looked like something out of a bad movie, mid-1800s, peeling and rotten with a big spindly tree that never grew any leaves right next to it. He wonders what happened to it, can't quite remember what road it was on anymore. It wasn't really haunted; he's learned that haunted places hardly ever look like the ones in the movies and the nice suburban homes that don't have shutters falling off are just as likely to kill you as the freaky run-down ones, but it's the principle of the thing.
“You remember that old house we always used to pass?” Sam asks, and Dean is going to sit him down and grill him until he admits that he's telepathic, one of these days.
“What, the haunted house? Yeah. You remember where it is?”
“Nah,” Sam says, shaking his head, a long strip of candy hanging out of the corner of his mouth. If he keeps talking it's going to fall onto his lap, and Dean will spend half his time looking at the bits of powered sour-citric acid, or something like that-on Sam's lips and half the time laughing at him. “I just thought it was somewhere around here.”
“It is,” Dean agrees. “Just not on this highway, I think.” He frowns, trying to remember for the second time today. He very deliberately avoids thinking about their dad again, about watching him from the backseat as they rumbled by that old house.
Forcing his thoughts to take another direction just means he ends up thinking about Sam's lips again, though. He turns up the music further, loud enough to make the car rattle, in the hopes that it will distract him. It's fucking ridiculous, and yeah, they've never been anything even approaching normal, but... well. Sam's wishes for normal include a dog, a house, a girl, a career where he isn't breaking the law sixteen times a day, or at least they used to. Dean's can be summed up with “I think about my brother in a completely platonic way all the time.” The rest of normal can go fuck itself any day, but having a lack of one-sided incest in his life would be awesome.
“Dude, are you trying to lose your hearing?” Sam asks, turning the music down, and Dean tries to wither him with a glare but it doesn't come out quite as determined as it was in his head.
“Nah,” Dean says, speeding up even though the next town is bound to have a cop car laying in wait, gleefully ready to pull him over. “My hearing is always gonna be awesome. Not my fault you can't handle it.”
“Riiight,” Sam says, raising an eyebrow at him, and Dean's mood dips smoothly into annoyed. He strongly suspects Sam is going to take this as a sign that they need to have a Serious Feelings Talk; they both know that when Dean cranks the music like that it's either because he desperately needs a distraction from his own head or he's got a piece of highway where there's nothing for a hundred miles and the speed limit is seventy-five. And sure, there's nothing around here, but this is Ohio, not Nebraska, and there are cop cars fucking everywhere, so it's pretty clear which one this is.
Sam opens his mouth to speak and Dean glares at him with as much force as he can muster, trying to stop the awkward dead in its tracks before it begins, and judging by the headshake and snort that follows, it did its job.
Usually, he's a little more subtle about all this. Sam almost died back up in Michigan though, strangled half to death before Dean showed up, and Dean can try to pretend it doesn't freak him out, but it's not like that will do any good. He has his moments of vulnerability, and nothing brings them out quite like near-death experiences. It fucking sucks. Sam won't bring it up, because he's convinced that Dean overreacts and he could have gotten out without help, but he wants to and they both know it.
“Alright, spit it out,” Dean growls finally. Sam wants to say something so badly Dean can feel it, and it's driving him fucking nuts.
“I'm fine,” Sam says in a voice that's dangerously close to the Feelings Talk one. “You've gotta stop worrying about me all the time, man. I'm old enough, I can handle myself.”
“Yeah, well, let me know next time you're turning blue and can fix it yourself just fine,” Dean mutters, and his fingers are really starting to hurt now. He should probably ease up on his grip already. “'Cause it looked to me like you were getting your ass kicked.”
Sam doesn't say anything, just clasps his hands together in his lap and stares straight ahead. “I was fine,” he repeats, and god, Dean wants to kick his ass six ways to Sunday. If they weren't in the middle of nowhere he'd pull over and... well, okay, they're injured easily enough without him kicking the shit out of his brother, but he'd get in a punch or two, and then-yeah, no, he's not going to take that train of thought anywhere good, so he'd better derail it now.
After a long silence, Sam starts rummaging in the box of tapes, and Dean has to bite back a laugh when he hears John Fogerty singing about being stuck in Lodi again. Sure, it's not Lodi, Ohio the guy's singing about, but the signs he's passing now say Lodi, and it doesn't exactly look like a place he'd be real happy about being stuck in. Sam's trying to cheer him up and he knows it; it's not a bad effort, all things considered.
Sam's smiling again, and Dean really needs to stop thinking about kissing him. Fucking near-death experiences, he thinks bitterly. He really needs to stop letting Sam get into shit like that, because if they keep up Dean really is going to kiss him someday and then Sam will run off and leave Dean to be killed by apple-pie-loving psychos again.
He came back at the right moment, but still. It's the principle of the thing.
The car lurches and Dean swears, cursing Ohio and its shitty standards for road maintenance. He's on 76 now, and it's an interstate, for fuck's sake, it shouldn't have a rumble strip randomly in the middle of a lane or a pothole roughly the size of Montana, but it does, and he might as well be driving down a dirt road for all the smoothness he's getting. He swerves out of the way of the worst of it, but his shoulders are tense, and the sooner he's off this damn highway, the happier he's going to be. His baby is not designed for this kind of abuse.
“We're almost there,” Sam assures him, laying a hand on his shoulder in a way that's probably supposed to be soothing. It really doesn't help. “She'll make it.”
“Fucking Ohio,” Dean grumbles, lurching out of the way of yet another pothole. “Swear to God, Sammy, there better be a real case in-Rittville?” He glances over at Sam, trying to remember. They're all nothing-towns in his book, things blur together a little.
“Rittman,” Sam corrects patiently, eyeing the exit signs. “Middle of nowhere, basically no crime usually, but they've had four people turn up dead in the past week and a half in the same woods. Two couples; first ones had a tree fall on them, second two...” He raises an eyebrow. “Fell down into a ravine and both broke their necks. Think it qualifies?”
“No, Sam, I think there's a sudden epidemic of clumsiness going around,” Dean says, the corner of his mouth quirking up as he glances sideways at his brother. “You'd better be careful.”
*
The job is stupidly easy. Small town like this, the locals are falling over themselves to help. Half of them want to be able to say they helped the FBI with an investigation and the other half contribute just because they love hearing themselves talk. They could have walked in without the pretense of being FBI agents and found out everything they need to know within fifteen minutes, if they eavesdropped on the right people. In the end, it's just a simple salt-and-burn, smooth and painless.
“Practically a vacation,” Dean says, sitting on the curb outside their motel the next morning. He stretches, a pleasant ache in his shoulders that he's come to associate with a job well done, and the sun warms him to the bones. Sam is beside him, rolling a pebble under his foot absently. He doesn't say anything, just watches Dean with a careful eye, sizing him up.
A year ago, Sam would have been grateful to have an easy job. Now, he just looks suspicious, the little shit.
“Practically,” he echoes.
“Aw, come on, Sammy, lighten up,” Dean says, rising to his feet and clapping Sam on the shoulder. “I'm sure we'll be back to getting our guts ripped out in no time.”
Sam's mouth twitches like he's fighting back a smile but he represses it in record time. He's bleary-eyed and rumpled, hair still sticking up at angles from sleep, and the shirt he threw on when he woke up is inside-out. He looks gentle and harmless, the kind of guy old ladies want to give cookies to. Some day when Dean turns around Sam's going to have turned into a gigantic, overly shaggy Golden Retriever. He's already halfway there.
“Dean, we could have given that job to someone else,” Sam says after a long moment, and Dean leans against the door to their motel room, crossing his arms. Sam doesn't look back at him. “Someone who needed the experience. That was the kind of case we used to take back when I was fourteen.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, prickling, “because I knew exactly how it was going to go when I got here. Jesus, Sam, the newspaper reports don't exactly come with a danger rating.”
Sam does turn to look at him then, eyes narrowed. Yeah, Dean's really fucking transparent when it comes to Sam, and he was hoping they could catch a break for a day or two, but it's not like he knew.
“Look--” Sam begins, and Dean holds up a hand to stop him. They both know what he's about to say, and Dean's been fighting with himself on the issue well before Sam's latest near-death experience. On one hand, Sam is an adult, his hunting partner, and Dean shouldn't be babying him. On the other, Sam is Dean's world, the only family he has left, and he'll be damned if he lets Sam beat him in the live-fast-die-young Olympics that is this life.
The two of them have near-death experiences like most people have Tuesdays, so he isn't even sure what his problem is. Sam half-dead in the middle of a Michigan cemetery wasn't much different than Sam half-dead anywhere else, and he really should just be grateful his brother got another reprieve.
Idly, he wonders if nine AM on a day off is too early to get blindingly drunk.
“Come on,” Sam says, kicking the pebble he's been playing with into the middle of the parking lot. “Let's go get some breakfast.” He pulls himself to his feet, brushing off his jeans, and makes for the motel room door. He's probably going to notice that his shirt's inside-out soon. If he doesn't, though, Dean isn't about to tell him.
Sam's declared a truce. He gets that. Their lives are made up of concessions and truces, of subjects to dance around rather than meet headlong. This is just one of many.
Dean carefully forcing himself to look away as Sam tugs the shirt over his head-that's another.
*
Margarita's Rittman Diner is an old-fashioned red building across the street from the police department, second story painted a different color and tacked on like the builders wanted to add a little something extra but didn't have the patience to do anything but half-ass it. The bell jingles, bright as Dean tugs the door open, holding it for Sam without even thinking about it. Several people look up at once.
They're the talk of the town for the moment, and this is why he likes to have a case lined up before they finish the first one. They could have gotten the hell out of Dodge last night but money is tight right now-the only reason they're going out to breakfast is Sam found a five in an old pair of jeans this morning that they could tip with-and so he's trying to be a responsible adult (as responsible as anyone can be living off hustled cash and fake credit cards) and know where he's going when he starts driving.
The sudden bout of Adult Responsibility was Sam's idea, actually. Something about “fifteen miles to the gallon, Dean,” and his eye twitches just thinking about it. They'll get a few new cards soon, but not soon enough for his liking. His favorite alias expires in a month.
Dean orders three different kinds of pork and some hash browns for good measure, and grossing Sam out with his serial-pig-eating habits is entirely the point. Sam tries to be a health freak sometimes but he was raised on canned pseudo-pasta and gas station hot dogs and he'll cave when he sees the ham. Dean hopes so, anyway. He doesn't really feel like eating it.
“Dude, you know there are food groups that include things other than meat and potatoes, right?” Sam asks, pausing in his lecture to nod at the waitress when she stops by the table with their cups of coffee. Dean smiles at her, the charm more of a reflex than anything else, and Sam coughs meaningfully.
“You'll have to forgive him, he's coming down with something,” Dean says easily, and when she walks away he adds, “So, you turning into a nutritionist on me then?”
Sam looks annoyed. It's either the flirting or the pork. Dean weighs the two in his head, trying to decide.
“I just don't take nutrition advice from a guy who used to be obsessed with Spam,” Sam says evenly, taking a sip of his coffee.
“I was nine!”
“Yeah, and I was five, but you didn't see me trying it, did you?”
Their truce is working out well so far. It might even last into tomorrow, if Dean is lucky.
“You ate margarine spread with a spoon when you were two,” Dean retorts, settling back into the booth, leather creaking under him. The fabric is split and there's a bit of fluff poking out, obviously already toyed with by other people. He's still pretty damn tired, because suddenly continuing to ruin it is extremely interesting.
“Anyway,” Sam says, swallowing down his coffee like it's not hot enough to burn his face off when taken in a gulp like that, “we need to find a case.”
“No shit,” Dean says, still tugging at the fluff of the upholstery with one hand. “And here I was, just thinking we were going to sit around all day braiding each other's hair.” He isn't much for post-hunt downtime when it's in the same small town as a case-especially not this kind of small town, where they might as well put up bars and a plaque explaining to passers-by that these are FBI Agents in Their Natural Habitat. Maybe the locals will throw them some peanuts.
He's about to say something to that effect when the waitress comes by with their food, and the smell of gloriously crisp bacon shuts down the rest of his brain for a bit.
“Look,” he says finally, halfway through a mouthful of sausage and hash brown, “I know we're trying to save money, but if I have one more person staring at me I'm gonna lose it.” He's about ready to say fuck it and just start driving. Anywhere will do. It's the off-season-evil never takes a vacation proper but for some reason it's not big on early spring-but it's still not safe to linger until they come across something.
He chews, swallows, and adds, “If we don't find anything by tonight we're heading out.”
Sam sighs. Dean is disrupting his little fantasy of being mature and responsible, he knows, but all they need is a good night at a bar to keep them going if the cards start getting rejected soon. He'd explain this properly if there weren't half a dozen people trying to listen in on their conversation. FBI showing up out of nowhere is one thing, but FBI that are low on money and hustling pool to get by probably stretches the bounds of credibility a little far.
He settles for trying to explain via raised eyebrows and facial expressions. It would be going better if he could keep his expression consistent, but Sam's managed to get a gob of jelly stuck at the corner of his mouth and it's really very distracting.
“Dude, you've got--” He motions, miming wiping it off, and Sam goes for the wrong side. Frustrated, Dean huffs out a noise and licks his thumb before reaching over and doing the job himself.
There's a funny noise somewhere to their left, rather like someone just choked on their food, and Dean suddenly realizes just how awkward this looks. That sudden, nervous-sick twist of his guts comes back in a rush.
“Could we get the check?” Sam asks the waitress, looking away from Dean deliberately. Yeah, weird, Dean thinks, that was probably a little too weird.
“Sure,” she says. She looks between the two of them and her eyes are wide. “I'll be right back.”
*
“I'm not ten anymore,” Sam says quietly as he slides into the passenger seat. Dean lets the keys rest on his lap, fingers drumming out a rhythm on his thigh to keep them occupied. They linger in the parking lot, mid-morning sun streaming in, and Sam sighs, shifting in the seat to make himself comfortable. “You don't have to do-that stuff. Don't treat me like a kid.”
“Aw, Samantha, are you getting embarrassed?” Dean asks, smiling even though his heart's not in it. He starts the car to keep himself grounded, the rumble of the engine soothing like the sound of a heart beating. One hand grips the steering wheel and he looks over at Sam, and something about the expression on Sam's face makes his breath catch. There goes the truce, right out the window, he thinks. He wants to peal out of the parking lot and drive forever, straight into the five hours of flat, rural nothingness that will take them out of the state.
He doesn't move for a long moment.
“Oh for--” Sam reaches over and puts the car into reverse before Dean has the chance to so much as fucking blink. The car lurches and Dean swears profusely, but he gets his foot to the pedal and his mind back on business and he might chuck an empty coffee cup at Sam for it, but he really doesn't mind.
*
Their feet thud heavy on the half-thawed ground, snapping twigs and kicking up loose stones. Sam keeps pace with Dean, holding back because with his longer legs he could outrun his brother easily. Dean's breath comes in shallow pants and he relishes the burn in his lungs, full of a restless energy that threatens to take him over and consume him. He keeps his head forward, muscles shifting and coming alive.
He wouldn't have said anything, if Sam hadn't first, but a run was exactly what he needed. He closes his eyes for a brief moment, taking his mind away from the way his shirt is beginning to plaster against his skin, sweat beading down his chest. When they were young, they did this every morning, like clockwork; as soon as the sun rose John called to him and he, in turn, shook Sam awake. The three of them made their way out to the fields, or the parks, if they were living in the city, and John urged him on when his energy started flagging, a barked order that had both force and proud fondness behind it. In turn, he kept Sammy going, making up filthy rhymes to the beat of their footsteps to make his brother laugh, distract him from the strain of his muscles.
When he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine he's hearing his father's words again, the three of them together, Sam beside him and full of restless young life.
Sam at his side is still a constant presence, the best grounding influence in his world now, and the thud of footfalls is like the roar of the car's engine-safe, familiar, home. God, he's getting sappy, and whatever happened to his usual policy of denial and repression? It's been working for most of his life, the deliberate attempt to not-think about whatever terrible evil has loomed over them this time, be it guilt, desire, the violent uncertainty of the future, or another death.
He's just a little out of sorts these past few days. Nothing a good, absorbing case, a bottle, and a stranger with a beautiful mouth won't cure.
Sam slows beside him, breath coming fast. He grins at Dean, brimful of endorphins that make it come easy, and Dean claps him on the back, says, “Come on, slowpoke, keep it up,” and takes off with a sudden burst of energy. He keeps his pace fast, heart pounding, and yes, this is what he needed exactly. The world seems so much simpler when he rushes past it, roads stretching out behind him and forward into oblivion, and he wonders how he was ever able to stay still. That's what this is, he realizes. Losing Sam would mean stopping his life dead in its tracks, and so this downtime has come exactly at the wrong moment; he has to keep moving, stop thinking, because the reality of the world these days is that Sam is involved in something bigger than the two of them, something terrible, and he's not sure either of them will make it out alive.
Michigan (fucking Michigan and its pissed-off, asphyxiation-happy six-foot-seven spirits with giant fucking hands) only brought that home.
He's halfway through the second loop of the trail when Sam catches up to him.
“Didn't know we were racing,” Sam says, and his face is halfway to to the flushed-red of real exertion. It makes Dean smile, glad for the concrete proof of just how alive his brother can be. He lets himself slow to give Sam a break, halfway between running and walking, and when Sam stops he lets himself do the same.
“Walk it off,” he says, more habit than anything else. Sam nods shortly and the two of them make their way down the trail, letting themselves take in the surroundings as their pulses slow. They were moving too fast before, but now Dean notices the felled trees, the spindly branches not quite ready to bud, the bright electric blue of the sky above their heads. It's too warm, as warm as March gets here at least, but Dean's grown up in enough deserts to prefer the heat to being cold any day.
He reaches up, slings an arm around Sam to ruffle at the sweat-damp hair on the back of his neck. Sam doesn't protest, for once. Dean connects with people on a physical level more than anything else, tries to limit the easy affection with Sam to stop himself going further than he means to, most days, but now and again it's nice to just let go.
“I'm here,” Sam tells him, no louder than a whisper, and in the silence of the woods it still feels too loud. “I'm here, okay?”
“Yeah,” Dean says, and his voice comes out raw. “Yeah, Sammy, I know.” He can't look at Sam, but he feels Sam's eyes on him all the same.
Sam turns then, reaching out, and Dean startles, stops when he feels Sam's hand on him, fingers touching his face, careful and tentative. He's standing so still and Sam is cupping his jaw, expression unreadable, turning Dean's face towards his and studying it. Dean doesn't know what he's looking for. It's strange, too intimate, the two of them together here, away from all eyes, and Sam doing this-he doesn't know what the hell is going on right now but Sam needs to pull away right the fuck now before Dean kisses him. Dean closes his eyes, unable to look at his brother, and Sam is closer now, close enough that Dean can feel the edges of his breath against his cheek.
“I'm here,” Sam repeats, and he lets his hand drop back to his side. Dean can't move for a moment, stunned into inaction, and he doesn't know what the hell just happened. Sam isn't the one who operates by touch, Sam doesn't do things like this.
When he opens his eyes, Sam is looking down, away from him.
“Chick flick moment, man,” Dean mutters, because he never met a silence he couldn't fuck up.
Sam's lip purses and his nose wrinkles in annoyance, the start of a spectacular bitchface. Dean is more relieved than he can say. He's going to have to ask Sam about this later, but for now he'd prefer to keep this strange, quiet Sam at bay. It's making him unsettled.
*
Normalcy creeps back in gradually. When they get back to the motel Dean spreads their guns out on his bed and cleans them, the motions easy and routine. Sam settles down on his own bed, laptop open, and it could be any of a hundred days they spend together. Moments like these are unremarkable. The slide and click of metal and Sam's careful fingers tapping on the keys are the only sounds inside the room, and when Sam slides the laptop closed he doesn't look up.
“I'm going to the library,” Sam tells him. Dean moves to get up and grab his keys off the nightstand, but Sam shakes his head. “It's a quarter mile from here, I'd rather walk,” he says with a shrug, and just like that, he's gone.
Without Sam there, it's almost too quiet. Late afternoon already, the day slipping away like water, and Dean finishes the last of the guns with quick precision. He moves over to Sam's bed after a quick survey of the disaster that is his own and settles comfortably against the pillows, flipping through channels on the shitty motel TV until he finds a music station he can stand.
His stomach growls-they've missed lunch-but getting out of bed requires energy. Instead, he shifts down the bed, reaching out until he can pull his duffel to him. All he's got in there are two candy bars and a half-empty bottle of whiskey, but that will do. He takes a long swallow and it burns his throat, heat shooting straight to his gut. Getting drunk alone in his motel room just reminds him of the months he and his dad spent hunting separately when Sam was gone, and that thought is too depressing for his taste so he shoves it away with another swig.
Long moments pass and there's nothing in his brain but pleased static, a warmth that makes him smile out of nowhere. Outside, dark clouds roll across the sun, obscuring everything, and he watches with lazy fascination as rain begins to pelt against the windowpanes. It's only a one-story motel so he can hear the raindrops as they thud against the roof above him, the distant thunder that promises worse to come.
He startles into awareness hours later, didn't even realize he'd fallen asleep but he's lost three hours and the heaviness of his head has faded to a low buzz at the back of his skull, the halfway place between drunk and sober. His eyes feel sticky and crusted when they open and he rubs at them, trying to come back to himself. Sam, he thinks suddenly, and that low gut-twist of nerves stabs him out of nowhere. Sam's not back yet. It's almost eight o'clock and the rain has gentled into a light spray, but there's no sign of his brother, no indication that he's been back to the room.
Maybe Sam is still at the library. There's a good chance of it-he's king of the geeks and if he could sleep on a bed made entirely of books he would-but even if he is, he'll give Dean hell if he has to walk back in the rain.
Dean swings out of bed, fast enough to give himself a headrush, and he swears, steadying himself with one hand on the nightstand. Sam is probably fine, he tells himself sternly as he gets to his feet. Sam is probably lost in a book and has no idea his brother passed out drunk and woke up paranoid. Sam has not been kidnapped, or eaten, or arrested for being a freak.
Probably.
One of the worst parts about knowing exactly what lurks in the dark, though, is being able to mentally list twenty different ways in which Sam could be dead in a ditch in under a minute. A minute later, after Dean has called Sam's phone and gotten voicemail, he adds another twenty-five.
“Son of a bitch,” Dean says, with feeling, and gets to the car in record time.
*
It's too quiet. Dean feels like an idiot for even thinking that, because it's a library, for fuck's sake, but the point still stands. There's a librarian at the front desk who looks bone-tired and she doesn't even look up as he passes, but apart from that he can see no one else.
Row after row of nothing but dim light and endless books, the fluorescent lighting buzzing loud enough to set his teeth on edge, and even his own footsteps feel too loud as he makes his way towards the back. The library closes in an hour; it feels already closed, too empty. He makes his way to the second floor, taking the stairs two at a time, and his heart is starting to thud heavy in his chest.
In a far corner, the already-dim lights flicker, and it takes Dean a moment to realize the figure half-hidden in shadow isn't just in his imagination. Sam's sitting sprawled out on the cheap carpet, one hand inside a book to hold his place as he looks out the window. He watches the rain patter against the glass, silent and peaceful. Dean wants to yell, wants to walk up and shake the hell out of him, but it would break the stillness in the air so he just takes a deep breath and makes his way forward.
“Hey, Dean,” Sam says, looking up. One corner of his mouth quirks up in a smile.
“Hey,” Dean says, trying to calm his frayed nerves. “What are you reading?” He settles down onto the carpet beside Sam, resting on his heels.
Sam holds up the book title-forward for inspection, and Dean huffs out a laugh. The Vulgate. Of course. Of course Sam is reading the Bible in fourth-century Latin. Jesus, his brother really is a geek, though he does have to admit Revelations (or, well, Apocalypsis Iohannis) is one of the more interesting books.
Yeah, he's read the whole thing (though he skipped all the “so and so begat” parts in favor of the sexy ones). Blame Pastor Jim for that one.
“You didn't answer your phone,” he says finally. His voice is steadier than he expected it to be.
Sam blinks at him, the dazed stare of one who has been deeply lost in thought (or books) for the better part of an afternoon. “It's on silent,” he says, shifting to tug it out of his pocket. “It's eight already?” He stares down at the display.
“Yeah,” Dean says, scowling. “It's eight, and I think you're the only one who's still here.”
“You could have gotten me earlier,” Sam says, and then he leans closer to Dean, close enough to startle him. His takes in the sleep-rumpled mess of Dean's hair, the smell on his breath, and he snorts. “Had to wait until you sobered up, huh?”
“I could have made you walk back in the rain, bitch. I'm doing you a favor.”
He wouldn't have, and they both know it.
“Were you worried about me? Again?” Sam asks after a long silence, still too close to him. Dean settles for staring at his knees; it's that or Sam's mouth, and goddamnit, he is not drunk enough for this. He knows Sam wants to ask, “why now?” Why now, after everything they've been through, after they've both had enough close calls to lose count-why is this different? Dean doesn't really know the answer to that. Maybe he's just hit a breaking point. It had to happen someday. Sam's right in the middle of a whirlwind of bad, has been for a while, and Dean is so tired of holding onto his brother's life by nothing but a thread.
“You were gone and you didn't answer your phone,” Dean mutters. “It's not like you've got a great track record with the whole 'randomly disappearing' thing.”
“I said I was going to the library and I was at the library. Jesus, Dean, are you going to try and give me a curfew or something?”
Dean closes his eyes, trying to will himself back into intoxication. “Goddamnit, Sam, just--”
“Just what? I'm not a kid anymore, I can handle myself.”
“You think that's why I'm worried? I know you're not a kid, but you're still my little brother, I have to look out for you. If something happened to you--”
“What, it'd be your fault?” Sam sets the book down with a heavy thud. “I'm here. I'm here, I'm alive, and I'm not going anywhere. I don't know how the hell you want me to prove that to you.”
“I don't know,” Dean admits, quiet. “Look, I'm being pretty fucking stupid about this, I get that, but you're still all I've got, and--”
Sam cuts him off. “Who else do you think I have?” he asks sharply, and Dean turns his head to look at his brother, really look at him. They're nearly nose-to-nose. Dean bites his lip, eyes flicking downwards, and Sam isn't moving.
“Dean, look at me,” Sam says, and Dean has never been able to go against a direct order. There's something odd in Sam's voice, his tone caught between determined and absolutely terrified, and when he forces himself to look upwards again Sam's mouth is set in a thin line and his shoulders are tense. “I'm not going anywhere. I know this is about way more than just that case, but I can take care of myself and you worried just turns into you taking stupid risks for me. I don't want that and-just. Shit.” He closes his eyes, ducks his head for a moment and takes a deep breath. “Don't punch me for this, okay?”
Dean is about to ask for what when Sam reaches out, cups his jaw, and crushes their mouths together in a fierce kiss. The bottom drops out of Dean's stomach like he's just fallen off a cliff. He should pull away. He knows he should pull away, but good sense has left the building, and instead he's threading his fingers into Sam's hair and pulling him closer. He opens his mouth against Sam's, and the kiss shifts, suddenly full of insistent heat, Sam's tongue in his mouth, Sam's hands fisted tight in the fabric of his shirt, not letting him go for an instant. Dean feels a low, insistent throb of arousal, shifting against it as Sam presses closer to him.
“Dean,” Sam says weakly against his lips, and it's half plead, half moan. Dean jerks back like Sam just punched him. Reality comes flooding back in an instant. They're in the middle of a library, they're in public, this is really weird.
“We--” he starts, and he means to voice the obligatory objections-you're not thinking straight, wrong, illegal, etcetera-and what comes out of his mouth is, “Do you really want the librarian perving on us?”
Sam actually laughs. It's weak and nervous but it's still a sound Dean wants to hear more of. His heart is pounding and he thinks he's maybe a little dizzy, still buzzed. Sam kissed him. He doesn't know why the hell Sam kissed him-and then he gets it in a rush of sudden clarity. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere. He navigates his world by touch and physicality and Sam knows this; Sam is proving to Dean that he's alive and present in a way Dean can't misunderstand.
“Is this okay?” Sam asks quickly, looking away from him like he can't quite bring himself to meet Dean's eyes when he asks.
“Yeah. Jesus, Sam, yeah, if it's okay with you.” He stands, reaches out a hand to pull Sam to his feet.
“It's been okay with me for years,” Sam says, and oh thank fuck, they're on the same page here.
“Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “Yeah, me too.”
Sam grins, sudden and blinding like stepping into blazing midday sun, and he says, “C'mon then.”
Dean doesn't have anything in the world he can say in response besides yes, so he just lets Sam pin him to the stacks, one leg pressed up between his thighs as Sam leans in again, cupping the side of his face as he lowers his head for another kiss. It grows heated, Sam's hand sliding up to grip his hair tight enough to hurt, Sam biting at his lower lip until it aches, marking him up, teeth sinking in at the sensitive points of his neck, and Sam knows everything about him, so of course Sam knows exactly where to touch, knows Dean's body almost as well as his own. He lets go of Dean's hair to slide a hand under his shirt, tracing over sensitive skin, and Dean shivers against him, groaning into the kiss, letting his little brother take anything he wants. Sam's teeth on him hurt, and he's not much into pain, but the thought of the marks he'll be seeing tomorrow are enough to make him hard enough to hurt, and when Sam presses in again he can feel Sam hard against his thigh, in answer, response.
“Dude. In public, librarian probably perving right now,” Dean manages, and Sam's laugh is about five seconds from an honest-to-God giggle when he lets Dean go. He's going to be able to make Samantha jokes for a month based on that sound alone, and if he didn't want to push Sam down to the ground right now and put his mouth all over him he'd be able to feel a lot more smug about it.
“Come on then,” Sam says, and Dean is so out of it that he doesn't even notice Sam nicking his car keys until he sees them wound around Sam's finger. “Motel.”
*
They're silent on the drive back, but it's not the kind of silence that needs to be broken by declarations or arguments; Dean knows as well as Sam does that if either of them say a word before they make it back they're going to end up going no further than the backseat. Sam keeps stealing glances at him, dark-eyed and heated, and Jesus, Dean did not think his day was going to end like this. He wouldn't have seen it coming in a million years, and he has to breathe deep and look away, focus on the dips and curves and bumps of the road or he's going to get carried away. The rain has stopped but the night is absolute in its darkness, no moon at all, and the closer they get to the motel, the more the world seems to fade away until the only thing that seems real is his brother beside him.
“Come on,” Sam says as they park the car, and Dean wants to laugh, because that's exactly the kind of tone Sam used to use when they were younger and Sam wanted Dean to double-check the dark corners of the room with him, only his voice is different, deeper. It should probably give him cold feet, that thought, but God help him, it doesn't seem to matter.
They never make it to the bed, the first time. Sam has him pressed up against the door the second they get inside, hands sliding fast over him, tugging up his shirt, and Dean lets his head tip back, panting, staring up at the cracked plaster ceiling as Sam's mouth leaves wet trails on his chest. He wants to touch, wants to get his hands all over Sam, and he tugs Sam's shirts off with vicious quickness, pressing back against him as soon as it's done, chest to bare chest with only his amulet in between.
“Dean,” Sam murmurs, and it's fervent, like a prayer, kissing him again like it's the only thing he wants to do for the rest of his life. Dean loses himself in it, Sam's slick lips against his, Sam's hands on his skin, reaching down until he gets a hold of Dean's belt, and Dean doesn't even have time to think before Sam's stripped him entirely, those big, rough hands wrapping around him, and he arches up for it, any coherent thought in his mind turning to mindless babble as Sam thumbs over the head, spreading slickness, and he's got fingernails digging into the skin of Sam's back, now, raking down. Sam shudders and works him faster and Dean grins, even if it's a little strained, digging his nails in harder now that he knows Sam likes that.
“Fuck, Sammy,” Dean gasps, and he can already feel his orgasm building, undeniable pleasure rushing up in him. He tries to hold off longer, tries to make it last, but then Sam leans in and whispers, “Gonna come for me, big brother?” and jesus fuck, Sam is a sick, kinky bastard and Dean loves it. He comes all over Sam's hand and himself, eyes squeezing shut against the sudden onrush of feeling, almost dizzy with it.
Sam strokes him through the aftershocks and Dean doesn't even hesitate; as soon as Sam lets him go he spins the two of them, pressing Sam against the door, and drops to his knees. He'd have the I'm-not-gay mental battle, but this is Sam, and Sam doesn't count, and Sam is looking down at him with pupils blown, his face red and flushed, and fuck it, any and all internal freakouts are officially on hold because Dean is doing this now.
As he expected, Sam is a pushy bastard about this, too; he parts his lips, takes Sam in, and Sam's fingers wind into his hair, pulling him forward until his jaw aches and he can't breathe, not all the way down but further than he thought he could take. He brings a hand up to Sam's hip, the other wrapping around the base of Sam's cock. Sam makes a noise that doesn't even sound quite human, and Dean has to press Sam harder into the door to keep his hips from snapping forward. His nails dig into the sharp spike of Sam's hipbone and he slides off slickly before pushing down again. When he can bring himself to look up at his brother, Sam is staring at him, eyes dazed and disbelieving and so fucking hot Dean could probably come from it alone, if he hadn't just already.
Dean doesn't know what the hell he's doing, but Sam guides his head, pulls him off a little and then lets his hips jerk, and Dean's mouth already feels well-used but he lets Sam, moves his hand and lets Sam fuck his mouth, shallow enough that he can take it. He's not gay, yeah, but this is the hottest fucking thing he's ever done, and he can't bring himself to pull away even when Sam gives him warning, a sound that's probably meant to be his name but comes out more of a groan, fingers tightening in his hair. Sam comes, near-silent but his head is thrown back and his mouth is open and he looks fifteen different kinds of pornographic. Dean doesn't like the taste, but it's Sam, and Sam just came in his mouth, holy shit, and if his tastebuds can cope with the shitty beer he drinks on a regular basis they can handle this just fine.
“Fuck, Dean,” Sam breathes, drawing him back when he gets too sensitive. “Come here.” He pulls Dean up to his feet, drags him into a kiss, and they collapse onto the nearest bed, only breaking the kiss when Dean makes a startled sound at the impact. Sam is on top of him, heavy and sudden, and he laughs without even quite knowing why. It's just-it's Sam, and Sam looks stupidly content, and he did that. He feels good enough that he doesn't even care about Sam's cuddly tendencies, just breathes out, enjoying the press of skin on skin.
“Don't freak out in the morning, okay?” Sam asks, eyeing him, and Dean stares. He isn't sure whether Sam telling him not to freak out, after, is hilarious or just plain weird.
“Well, one of us should,” he says, and he's not even sure why that came out of his mouth. He's still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but then again, maybe both shoes have been on the floor the whole time.
“Nah,” Sam says simply, pulling Dean closer to him. Jesus, the kid's like a six-foot-five octopus, possibly with more limbs than that, and Dean doesn't have a prayer of getting free. He resigns himself to cuddling and hopes to God Sam doesn't drool on him in his sleep. He used to, when they were kids; maybe he's grown out of it.
“Where do you want to go tomorrow?” Dean asks, eyelids heavy with sleep, and Sam's hand runs down his back, smooth and slow, making him squirm.
“South,” he says decisively. “Less cornfields. Found a case in Tennessee, I'll tell you about it in the morning.”
Dean grins. “Gotta get through most of Ohio if we're going south, man,” he points out. “Whole lotta cornfields on the way.”
“Long as we get out,” Sam says, half-heartedly stifling a yawn. “I've had enough Midwest for a while.”
Dean kinda likes the Midwest, but he isn't about to argue, and he lets himself drift with Sam, fading out into sleep.
In the morning, they take the 71 south out of town, Dean swearing as they navigate the four lanes of early-morning traffic. The sun is starting to peek out above the horizon, and it casts a soft light on the world, a gentling influence even among the chaos of bumper-to-bumper traffic and car horns. Dean turns up the music and breathes deep, one hand on the wheel and one hand at the ready to flip off other drivers. Sam laughs at him, the bitch, and drinks half of Dean's coffee while Dean is distracted. As they fly past the cornfields and rolling hills, losing the traffic forty miles in, Dean realizes the tension in him has gone completely, leaving only a pleasant warmth in its place. He really should have a problem with this. He should at least care that this is wrong (by normal societal standards, which they are terrible at) and illegal (though they're wanted criminals already).
Sam's grin comes easier today, though, and that one, tiny thing makes him not regret the night for an instant. Sam is alive and happy and here, and that's all he needs.
“You know, supposedly there's a phantom hitchhiker on 71,” Sam says casually, watching the road.
Dean turns down the music. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, giving him a sideways glance and a smile.
Despite all odds, life is pretty good right now. Dean smiles back and lets himself relax into the seat, listening.