Fic: pick a star on the dark horizon (Supernatural, Sam/Dean)
pick a star on the dark horizon (and follow the light)
Words: 7,136
Rating: Adult
Spoilers: Through end of season 3
Summary: One month, and it's still a little overwhelming to have Dean back, still a little unbelievable.
Title and cut tag are from Regina Spektor's The Call, which Terra introduced me to and gave me the title idea, so thanks roomy! Also, huge thank you to luzdeestrellas for the speedy and super helpful beta! Any remaining mistakes are mine.
The whole world is grey outside the motel window, waves rolling and smashing into the rocks like angry fists. The clouds are twisting and turning above, moving as one, promising storms. There are hurricanes in the south and wildfires out west. Dean says that it’s the end of the world. Sam’s already lived through that twice, though, the passenger seat empty and cold beside him, so he’s not too worried.
The motel they found is old and rundown, on the side of an old state highway that twists along the coast and that nobody drives in November. They both like the quiet and solitude of off-season. Dean’s taken to wandering on the beach by himself over the last week, staying out past dark some days, just watching the waves.
Sam can see him out there, maroon flannel a stark contrast to the endless grey. His jeans are rolled up under his knees as he wades in ankle deep to the oncoming waves, tempting fate to try just one more time.
Wind whips across Sam’s face when he walks outside, hands shoved deep in the pocket of his hoodie. The salty air is sticky and heavy on his skin, sharp and lingering on his tongue when he licks his lips. He can hear the rumble of thunder over the crash of the waves, and the distance to Dean looks farther than before.
Dean doesn’t move when Sam comes to stand beside him; he just leans into Sam’s shoulder and breathes deep.
One month in, and it’s still a little overwhelming to have Dean back, still a little unbelievable after almost six months without him. The panic of it all has mostly disappeared, the fear that Dean will vanish between one blink and the next, but there are still days when Sam wonders if he’s finally lost it, started imagining Dean there with him because he doesn’t know how to survive without him.
He pulls his left hand from his pocket and brushes his fingers down the inside of Dean’s wrist, just to be sure.
Lightening skitters through the clouds over the ocean, brief and sudden.
Sam knocks his elbow into Dean’s ribs, fingers still pressed against his pulse, gets his attention before he says, “We should go inside.”
Dean shrugs and wiggles his toes in the sand. “Ocean’s not boiling yet,” he says, voice still rough from disuse but he turns when Sam does, follows him back to the room, only a step behind.
The rain starts the second they close the door behind them, pounding against the window like it wants in. Sam eyes the salt along the sill and flips the door latch. “Hungry?”
Dean grunts, word quota used up for the day, and grabs the newspaper off the table to finish the Sudoku Sam abandoned an hour ago--the only part of the paper either of them bothers with. Sam still gets frustrated after twenty minutes, but Dean’s gotten pretty good, corrects Sam’s wrong answers with a blue pen, the same way he did with his math homework when he had trouble with long division. Sam half expects to find little comments in the margin of the paper the same way he did back then, close, Sammy, use that big brain of yours and think it through. Sometimes he puts the wrong number, just to get a reaction. He never thought he’d miss his brother calling him a moron.
He’s a little lost on what to do next. They’ve been in Maine since the day after he pulled Dean back from hell, and then drove as far as he could with Dean unconscious in the back seat.
Dean’s better than he was back then, but he’s still pale and too thin, still on edge, quiet, part of him hidden back in himself where Sam can’t reach. Sam’s happy to lay low, too many of his own ghosts to fight from those six months, and too many demons still roaming around that would take Dean away from him as quickly as they did before. Dean doesn’t seem to be itching for a hunt the way he would have before after a month of down time, he’s just been driving them around the state for the past two weeks, like he’s looking for something he lost.
Sam orders two pizzas even though Dean still doesn’t have enough of an appetite for more than two slices, and finds a Hitchcock marathon on one of the old movie channels. Dean falls asleep halfway through Vertigo, sand still clinging to the bottoms of his feet. Sam pulls his gaze away from him and looks out the window to where the rain is still falling in sheets, hard and relentless, and thinks maybe he’s looking for something, too.
***
They finally cross Maine’s border into New Hampshire a week later. Dean sticks to the coast for a while, driving down through what he likes to call the blue blood states, and continuing to wind them down the edge of the country.
They stop at a diner on the border of North Carolina for lunch and have to rock-paper-scissors for fries because there’s only enough left for one order. Dean throws scissors like always, grins when Sam lays his hand out flat for paper because Dean’s appetite has just gotten back to the point where he wants to eat a whole order of fries with a burger.
Before, Dean would have crowed triumphantly and gone on for a ridiculous amount of time about biding his time and cashing in, and Sam feels a sharp pain at that piece of his brother he still hasn’t figured out how to save. But Dean’s smile is bright and happy, and for now that’s more than enough.
Their legs are spread wide under the table, pressed together from knee to ankle, and Sam’s not sure who it’s comforting more. Sam watches Dean glance out the window, doesn’t bother to hide it like he used to, knows Dean watches him just as much, like he’s still expecting to wake up back in hell. Sam wants to ask what it was like, but he thinks he wants to hear the answer even less than Dean wants to tell it.
Sam nudges Dean’s knee, more to pull himself from his own head than anything else, and Dean turns back, flicks a straw wrapper at Sam’s head. He jostles him as they walk to the cashier, trying to trip him up, and ends up elbowing Sam into the counter.
Sam grins apologetically at the girl behind the cash register. “Sorry, he’s,” he starts, even though there’s never been an explanation for Dean.
She waves her hand and smiles back at them. “I know how it is. I’ve got a brother, too.” It’s the first time in a long time someone’s thought that about them, and it makes Sam’s chest feel warm and tight. “Can’t live with ‘em, huh?” she jokes, and turns away to get their change.
Sam has to breathe deep a couple of times before he can look over at Dean. They both know the punch line to that one, and it hits a little too close. Dean presses a hand to the middle of Sam’s back, warm and solid, and slides it up, fingertips brushing his neck briefly before he moves away. The bell above the door chimes as Dean leaves, but Sam forces himself to stay put and get his change instead of turning to make sure Dean’s still there.
“You wanna go to Williamsburg?” Dean asks when Sam meets him outside. He’s leaning against the car, eyes closed and face tilted toward the sun. “I’ll even let you get your geek on at the museums.”
It’s back two hours the way they came, but they skirted Richmond to avoid traffic. They don’t have anywhere else to be, and it’s off season so there won’t be huge crowds, which still make Dean jumpy.
Sam grins when Dean looks at him. “Yeah, ok.”
***
They’re still circling the east coast a month later, and Sam doesn’t think they’re any closer to whatever Dean’s looking for.
Dean points them toward the Appalachians when radio announcers start talking about blizzards and ice and the storm of the century. Pastor Jim had a cabin up in West Virginia that their dad inherited. They haven’t been up to it since Sam was fifteen, but they’re still waiting for new cards to come through, and Dean’s never liked being stuck out in the open with no way to get out of town.
The cabin is exactly how Sam remembers it, the air thick and stale with dust, the old ratty furniture covered in moth eaten sheets. He knows if he walked into the kitchen, the cabinets would be stocked with beans, instant soup, and coffee.
Dean drops his bag and rolls his shoulder, huffing a laugh as he looks around. “Guess some things never change, huh?”
The storm doesn’t start until after dark. Sam can hear the wind whistling by the window next to his bed, snow and ice hitting the glass in a quick tempo. Dean’s sleeping restlessly in the bed next to his, plagued by nightmares he won’t admit to, even though Sam can see the dark circles under his eyes and the tight lines around his mouth that only get more pronounced as the days pass.
Dean makes a noise, quiet and terrified, like he hasn’t since those first few days after Sam pulled him out, back when he was still too far gone to be aware of anything but Sam and safe. He wakes up as soon as Sam kneels on the mattress to crawl over him. Sam can hear him draw a breath, feels his whole body tense up, but it’s a few seconds after Sam flops down beside him that he says, “Dude, what the hell?”
“My mattress is lumpy.”
Dean stares at him for a moment. His hand twitches like he maybe wants to reach out and grab on, but he scrubs at his eyes instead. “Whatever. Just don’t steal all the blankets.”
He rolls over to go back to sleep, and Sam lies quietly, waits for Dean’s breathing to go deep and even. He waits another twenty minutes before he reaches out and wraps a hand around Dean’s arm, ready to pull Dean back from the nightmares the same way he did from the thing that caused them.
He wakes up to filtered winter sunlight spilling into the room, warm where it falls across his arm, and his nose pressed against the curve of Dean’s neck. He’s not sure who rolled where during the night, but he’s pretty sure he’s the one who will get hell for it when Dean realizes he’s awake.
He can feel Dean’s fingers ghosting along the back of his neck, and he keeps his breath deep and even, smelling sweat and sleep and Dean every time he breathes in. He wants to curl into it, press close until Dean’s so much a part of him that Sam never has to worry about losing him again. Dean’s thumb slides around the side of his neck until it’s brushing over Sam’s pulse, like Sam’s breath on his neck isn’t enough and he needs the reassurance.
“Do I need to buy you a teddy bear?” he asks, but he keeps one hand on Sam’s neck, the other curved around the top of Sam’s arm.
Sam laughs, smile pressed against Dean’s skin, and he lingers for a moment before he rolls away, putting a couple inches between them. Dean shifts a second later, arm brushing against Sam’s.
“You wanna talk about them?” Sam asks, staring up at the ceiling and not allowing himself to chance a look over at Dean. He doesn’t need to look to know Dean’s whole body tensed up the second the words were out of his mouth, like after everything that’s happened, talking about something like this is still one of the worst things he can imagine.
“Nope,” he says, and rolls out of bed. “Hey, are you going to make us some breakfast? I’m starving.”
Sam wants to argue, push until Dean breaks, tells him about the nightmares and memories, and how far he thinks he has to run before they’ll disappear. But the pleading look on Dean’s face when he glances back at Sam makes the words stick in his throat. Dean’s safe and not going anywhere, and maybe that should be enough.
“You want bacon?”
***
They get stuck with a flat tire in the middle of Ohio in February. Dean bitches about it without any real heat, and Sam sits with him while he works, leaning up against the side of the car.
Dean scowls over at him as he shifts around on the gravel, trying to get comfortable.“You doing okay there, princess?” he asks, wiping the dirt and grime on his hands from the hubcap on his shirt. “You need me to get you anything? A pillow? Maybe a blanket?”
“I’m a little thirsty actually,” Sam says, and licks his lips for the full affect.
Dean’s eyes narrow, and he throws a handful of dirt and gravel at Sam’s face. “Maybe you should sit in the car,” he says, turning back to the tire. “Wouldn’t want the cold to offend your delicate sensibilities.”
Sam presses his lips together and widens his eyes when Dean shoots him a quick glance. “I thought you might need help tightening the lug nuts.”
Dean looks gravely offended. “You just sit back while the real man does the work, Sammy.”
Sam grins so hard his cheeks ache a little. He turns away so Dean won’t see, looks out at the field that stretches out in front of them. There are dark grey clouds on the horizon moving toward them at a pretty fast clip, and the wind is sharp and biting, a kind of cold that sinks deep under your skin. Sam watches the way the clouds curve down until they touch the horizon, the land hilly and golden from the remains of last year’s crops.
He spent a lot of time around farms and empty fields, practicing, honing his skills, and he remembers how high the corn came up in June. He thinks Bobby sent him information about a hunt in Ohio, but he can’t remember, lost track after the first twenty messages, not willing to take anything but exorcisms, his best way of gathering information those first few months. He thinks about it sometimes, all the things he could have stopped in those six months, all the people he could have saved, but they never add up to the one he did.
He glances over at Dean, watches the way his muscles flex under his shirt while he works the lug nuts off. It hits him all at once, not for the first time since May, all the things he lost, everything he got back. He has to look away before he does something ridiculous like grab on to Dean and never let go.
The cold wind makes his eyes sting and he blinks back the sudden moisture. Those six months he was alone are still Technicolor clear in his memory, no matter how hard he tries to forget. So much worse than his life after that Wednesday in Broward County, because he knew he was the only one who could fix it, and most days it didn’t seem like he ever would.
Dean’s never asked how Sam got him out, not past asking a thousand times if he made another deal. Sam’s not sure what Dean would think of him if he did know how far he went, how much farther he was willing to go, living and breathing the destiny their father feared and no demon to blame. He’s never been able to feel any guilt over it, hasn’t gotten past so fucking grateful, and if that makes him an even worse person, then Sam’s willing to live with that.
“Dude,” Dean says, nudging Sam’s shoulder as he tightens the last of the lug nuts, and Sam leans into him for a moment. “Stop thinking so hard, you’re gonna pull something.”
Sam’s laugh catches in his throat, comes out choked and rough, but Dean smiles back, gaze lingering an extra second, and Sam has the sudden thought of leaning forward, pressing his mouth to Dean’s. He wonders if Dean’s lips would be as soft as they look, or if they’d be chapped and dry, cold from being outside.
He blinks and Dean’s turned back to the tire, leaving Sam feeling exposed and raw at the need that shot through him, sharp as lightening.
They stop early that night; find a motel off the state route with working heaters and a Chinese place across the street. Sam hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it all afternoon, what it would feel like, what Dean would do. He keeps waiting for the sick wrongwrongwrong feeling to kick in, and can’t muster up much surprise when it never does. He was ready to end the world to get Dean back, humanity no match for having his brother with him again, and that’s probably a bigger deal than wanting to kiss him.
They get take out, and Dean makes a show of using the chopsticks, grinning when Sam glares at him because he’s never been able to work them right. They spread all the food out on one of the beds, stealing from the other’s cartons every few bites. Sam looks up from swiping the last piece of broccoli that Dean won’t eat, anyway, and Dean’s sucking lo mien noodles through his lips, mouth wet and shiny from grease and sauce. Sam’s stomach dips hotly, and he leans forward across the food, a little crazy from the thoughts that have plagued him all day.
Dean makes a mumbled noise of surprise, the sound vibrating against Sam’s lips, but doesn’t push Sam away. Sam jerks back a second later once his brain’s had a chance to catch up with the rest of him and Dean stares at him, eyes wide.
Sam doesn’t know how to explain, or if he even can, so he just sits and waits for Dean to freak. Dean blinks a few times and opens his mouth like he’s waiting for words to come out. They don’t, and he closes it a second later, looks away and clears his throat.
“Wanna watch Jeopardy?” he asks, and when he looks back he’s smiling, bright and real and only a little strained. “Ten bucks says I’m smarter than you, college boy.”
Sam’s not sure if he’s disappointed or relieved, but he laughs anyway. “You’re on,” he says, licks his lips and tastes lo mien.
***
They keep heading west, twisting down through the south and then back up north in something like organized chaos. They stop for gas in the middle of Wisconsin one morning in March. Sam goes in to get them breakfast and when he comes back out Dean’s wandered off toward the river that runs next to the gas station.
There are chunks of ice floating down the river and snow still melting on the opposite bank. Dean’s standing under the lone tree on this side of the river, shoulders hunched against the wind and hands shoved deep in the pockets of his leather jacket. It’s cold out, well below freezing, and the radio in the gas station was talking about another Alberta clipper.
Sam makes his way over slowly, still half asleep. They’d packed up the night before, drove through till morning for no reason that Sam could get out of Dean other than he wanted to. Dean’s flushed from the cold, red curling over his cheeks and around his ears. Sam wants to reach out and trace it with his fingertips, feel Dean warm and alive under his hands.
Dean grins wide at him when he knocks their shoulders together, glances over at Sam for half a second before he looks back out at the river. “What do you think, Sammy? I’ve always wanted to be a polar bear.”
Sam doesn’t doubt that his brother would strip down and go for a swim just for the hell of it, just to prove to the world what Dean Winchester is made of. Sam grins at the mental image of Dean standing around in the Atlantic with all the sixty year olds they usually show on the news in January.
“It’s supposed to storm tonight.”
Dean makes a non-committal noise and rocks back on his heels. “Guess we should keep driving then.”
They’re less than a day’s drive from Bobby’s, but Sam stays quiet when Dean doesn’t mention it, not quite ready to share his brother with anyone else. He knows there are things they should be talking about, though. Almost four months and Dean hasn’t mentioned hunting once. Sam doesn’t mind, he’s done if Dean is, they’ve given more than enough. Dean has always viewed it differently though. For as long as Sam can remember Dean’s been talking about saving people, never wanting to let things in the dark tear apart another family. It’s a part of him. Sam’s not sure what to do if that part of Dean is gone.
“Dean, man, what are we doing?” The question is out before he can stop it, and Dean straightens his shoulders like he’s getting ready to throw a punch.
“What do you mean?”
Sam thinks about just dropping it, but he knows Dean won’t let him, and most days it just feels like the blind leading the blind, neither of them knowing what they’re really looking for, let alone what the other is.
“I don’t know, just. This. What are we looking for? Or running from?” he asks, even though he knows he shouldn’t, hopes Dean will tell him about the nightmares, or give him some idea of how Sam can help.
Dean snaps his head around to glare at him before the words are even fully out. “I’m not running.” He turns back toward the river and squints at the rising sun, lets out a long breath, shoulders curving in again. “That’s not what this is about,” he says, and pauses like he’s not sure he wants to finish. “Haven’t you ever just wanted to get in the car and drive?”
“That’s kind of been our whole lives, Dean.”
Dean shakes his head and sighs, breath fogging out in front of him. Sam knows he gave the wrong answer, feels a sick clench in his gut like he let Dean down by not understanding.
“We always have somewhere to be or something to kill,” Dean says. He glances over at Sam, easy and relaxed. “Don’t you ever just want to drive?”
Sam shrugs and looks back out at the river, watches the ice float on top of the water and thinks about freezing points and water density and the way Dean smiles when he’s behind the wheel of the Impala with nowhere to go. He thinks about six months that seemed to stretch on for years and the way Dean’s pulse feels under his fingertips.
“I guess it’s not so bad,” he admits, and when he looks back Dean’s smiling at him, soft and secret. Sam’s breath catches in his chest from the cold, and Dean, and too many memories that aren’t far enough away.
***
They stop in Dallas for a few days at the end of March. Sam’s never really liked staying in big cities. The cheap motels are always worse and the city noises keep him awake. He stares up at the ceiling, enough light coming in through the flimsy curtains to see the spider web cracks spreading across the plaster. He can hear airplanes flying low overhead, and traffic and people moving by on the street outside the hotel; it’s different from the low hum of freeway traffic or the occasional car driving past on a small town road.
Dean’s sleeping fitfully in the other bed, twisting and turning and muttering under his breath. Sam’s thinking about trying to wake him, not sure if a tossed pillow will do the trick, or just get him a knife thrown at his head. A car honks outside, one long, endless sound, and when it finally ends Sam thinks his ears might be ringing a little, but he knows Dean’s awake, hears the quick inhale and the lack of rustling sheets. Sam rolls onto his side and sees Dean staring blankly back at him, still caught in the nightmare.
“Dean,” he says.
Dean jerks, eyes focusing fast until he looks away. He grunts and rubs at his face before heading toward the bathroom. The pale yellow light spills across the floor, illuminating the ratty carpet, and Sam listens to the faucet run, watches Dean’s shadow move, stretched long on the motel wall.
When he comes back out, he just stands between the two beds, eyes wide and dark, hands twitching at his sides. Sam wants to reach out and pull him in. “Hey,” he says instead. “You wanna watch TV?”
Dean nods, scratches the back of his neck and crawls onto Sam’s bed, sitting close, brushing his fingers against Sam’s side when Sam leans over him to get the remote. Sam stays close enough that Dean can feel his body heat, feel his chest move with each breath, and he channel surfs until he finds a rerun of Saturday Night Live.
Sam can feel the tension easing out of Dean as they watch, his body relaxing against Sam’s more with each skit. He presses his lips together to keep the questions in; Dean won’t answer them anyway. He focuses on Dean instead, turns his head to watch him laugh at Will Ferrell, knows he’ll never get tired of that sound, or the way Dean’s eyes crinkle up when he’s happy, things that were slipping from his memory like quicksand less than six months ago.
Dean catches him looking and sobers, smile disappearing, but eyes still bright. Sam thinks he’s going to make a crack about Sam being a girl, or move away, but he just grabs the remote from Sam’s hand and plunges the room back into semi-darkness.
“What?” Sam asks, but as the screen goes black with a static hiss, Dean leans forward and presses his mouth to Sam’s, and Sam can’t do anything but hold on. He wraps a hand around Dean’s bicep, afraid he’ll pull away or disappear, but Dean just leans closer, slides a hand over Sam’s stomach.
Dean makes a noise of surprise when Sam licks his way into his mouth, muscles bunching up under Sam’s fingers, and Sam pulls back before Dean can, has to tear his gaze away from Dean’s mouth before he can find anything like words. “I-”
“Shut up,” Dean growls, and wraps a hand around the back of Sam’s neck to pull him in again; shoving his tongue into Sam’s mouth like he has something to prove. Sam snorts at the thought, can’t help it, this a competition just like everything else. He grabs Dean’s face with both hands so he won’t pull away and laughs into his mouth.
He can feel Dean’s smile, the way it stretches slow and wide, the grip on the back of Sam’s neck turning gentle, fingertips skimming over his skin as Dean laughs back. Sam tilts his head and licks the sound from Dean’s mouth. Dean hums, the noise vibrating against Sam’s tongue, and shifts to straddle Sam’s hips, one hand slipping up under Sam’s shirt to press against skin.
It’s not exactly comfortable. Sam’s back is aching from being pressed against the headboard, and Dean is sitting heavy on his thighs. They both lean forward and their teeth clack together; Sam’s nose is squished awkwardly against Dean’s cheek, and he opens his eyes to see Dean staring back at him.
Sam starts laughing again, feels a little hysterical over the fact that this is actually happening, and Dean leans back to watch him, smile bright in the dark room. Sam grabs his hips before he can change his mind and move away.
“Wait, just--” he starts, and slides down on the bed instead of finishing.
Dean moves with him and Sam swallows a groan at the feel of Dean stretched out over him, has to close his eyes and breathe deep for a second to stop himself from thrusting up into solid heat. He feels fingers brushing over his face, and he thinks Dean’s hands might be shaking a little.
“Sammy,” Dean murmurs, and Sam opens his eyes to see Dean leaning close, eyes wide and a little terrified.
Sam grabs the hand by his face and squeezes lightly; he tips his head up and kisses Dean slow, sucks on his bottom lip, scraping his teeth across the inside, and opens his mouth against Dean’s. Dean licks at the roof of his mouth, and Sam can’t stop a groan this time, pulls Dean’s hips snug against his and rocks up.
They get tangled in the sheets trying to pull clothes off. Dean growls and kicks it all to the end of the bed. Neither of them can get the right grip or angle, and after the third readjustment, Dean drops his face into the curve of Sam’s neck and groans in frustration before flopping onto his back dramatically.
Sam stares up at the ceiling for a moment. “Dude,” he says, still breathing heavy. “We suck at this.”
Dean starts laughing suddenly, loud and free, like Sam hasn’t heard in months. His chest feels tight at the sound and he grins, rolls onto his side to watch, and can’t help laughing with him because this really isn’t something they’re supposed to be good at. Dean’s face is scrunched up, shoulders shaking, and tears are just starting to leak out of the corners of his eyes.
Sam reaches out and thumbs the wetness away, keeps his hand curved around Dean’s jaw and presses close to feel him shake against him as he starts to calm down, trailing off into a few chuckles. He breathes against the side of Dean’s neck until Dean starts to squirm.
“Sam,” he says, quiet and rough, and runs a hand up Sam’s spine.
Sam hums, feels light and alive wherever Dean touches him. He scrapes his teeth against the thin skin of Dean’s neck, before sucking hard, feels Dean’s pulse against his tongue.
Dean groans and pulls at Sam until he moves and stretches out over him. Dean’s breathing hard against his cheek, eyes squeezed shut, and from the city lights leaking in through the curtains, Sam can see the flush that spreads down over Dean’s chest. Sam turns his head to kiss him again, sucks hard on Dean’s tongue, and Dean grips Sam’s hips tight, fingernails pressing into his skin, and thrusts up, his dick smearing precome and sweat across Sam’s hip.
“God, Dean,” he gasps, and presses his forehead against Dean’s shoulder to look down at how their hips are pressed up tight together, close enough that he thinks nothing will ever be able to pull them apart again. He can feel Dean shaking underneath him, and knows he’s just as bad.
He shifts, lines their cocks up and wraps one hand around them, pulling a groan from both of them, and leans up on his free arm enough to watch Dean fall apart. Dean opens his eyes right before he comes, stares back at Sam, open and happy, and it’s that more than anything that pushes Sam over the edge.
***
Things don’t really change after that. Sam half expects Dean to freak out the next morning, or pretend it never happened, but they just pack up and move out like they always do, Dean’s arm stretched across the back of the seat to curl a hand around Sam’s neck, thumb rubbing slowly behind his ear.
In mid-April they stop in Sedona for a night. They’ve been slowly winding their way through Arizona since the beginning of the week--Dean hasn’t said anything about the Grand Canyon, but they’re heading in that direction. As far as Sam can tell there’s no such thing as a cheap motel in Sedona, but it’s still a little early for tourist season, which means rooms aren’t as ridiculously expensive as they’ll be in another month or so. That doesn’t stop Dean from bitching, of course, even if he’s the one who decided to stop.
The light in the room is still twilight gray when Sam wakes up. The heavy curtains covering the big sliding glass door on the other side of the room have been pushed halfway back, the door slightly open. Sam can see Dean standing out on the little balcony, curved over the metal railing, black t-shirt pulled tight across his shoulders.
He watches him for a few moments, the stillness most people don’t ever see when they look at Dean. Dean who is larger than life, bright and vibrant, always ready to strike or fuck as the situation warrants. Sam tries to look at him like other people might, tries not to think about the sting of his right hook or the way his hands stitch up a wound sure and steady and gentle. But he still sees power and safety in the curve of his shoulders, still sees his whole world wrapped up under Dean’s skin.
There’s a little four cup coffee maker on the counter, with a filter bag of coffee that promises gourmet, like that will make it taste less like weak, watered down motel coffee. Sam flips it on as he heads to the bathroom.
The tiny white mugs make his hands feel large and clumsy, but Dean smiles, slow and soft, when Sam hands one over, wraps both hands around it like the air isn’t already warm with the beginning of spring and he needs the heat. The clouds, stretched thin across the sky, are starting to lighten to purple, a hint of pink edging along the curves of the red rocks that shoot up across the street.
Sam leans against the railing, pressed against Dean from shoulder to elbow, and watches the way the light hits them.
“You’re up early,” he says, once Dean’s had a chance to drink about half of his coffee.
He can feel Dean shrug against him. “Couldn’t sleep.”
The circles under Dean’s eyes have lightened, skin not as pale and tight as it was those first few months, but Sam knows the nightmares are still there, no matter how hard Dean tries to hide it. Dean can talk about how great fresh from the oven donuts are, or how important a morning run is until he’s blue in the face, but Sam stays awake some nights to listen to Dean toss and turn and mumble in his sleep until it gets unbearable and he has to slip across the three feet of empty space to the other bed. Dean doesn’t give more than a token protest, and Sam supposes he should be grateful for the little things, even if Dean still refuses to talk about it, or even acknowledge there’s a problem.
“Dude,” Dean says and rocks into his shoulder. “It’s way too early for that expression.”
“It’s too early for your face,” Sam retorts instinctively.
Dean snorts and shakes his head. “Man, your comebacks really suffered without me around.”
It’s the first time Dean’s ever mentioned those six months, and it takes Sam a minute to catch his breath. The reminder pulls Sam back to the thoughts Dean was trying to get him away from, and he looks down at the mug in his hands, swirls the coffee around the bottom of the cup.
“There’s stuff we could do,” he says, gaze determinedly not leaving his hands, not wanting to see Dean’s expression when he realizes what Sam’s talking about. “For the nightmares.”
Sam did a lot of research in those six months, found a lot of useless information, or at least useless for him at the time. But he knows, depending on how far you’re willing to go, you can do pretty much anything if you have the right tools.
“Sam,” Dean says tightly, barriers going up.
“Maybe if you talked about them,” Sam says, trying to push as far as he can before Dean shuts down and refuses to talk anymore.
“This isn’t Dr. Phil, Sam. I’m not gonna talk about them,” Dean snaps, jaw clenched. His fingers are wrapped around the coffee mug so tight the nail beds are white. He keeps his gaze across the street, the golden light from the rising sun highlighting his freckles. He sighs a second later, rolls his shoulders like he’s forcing himself to relax, and says, softer, “I’m fine. They’re not a big deal.”
“I just-” wanna help, Sam wants to say, but Dean’s never liked the idea that he needs help for anything. He lets it hang between them, knows Dean can hear the rest of it anyway.
Dean doesn’t say anything to it though, just stays quiet and breathes deep. The city is starting to wake up as the sun crests over the rocks, and Sam watches cars drive past on the road in front of them, he can feel Dean watching him and the way Dean’s shoulder is tensing up against his like he’s getting ready for a fight.
He doesn’t look over until Dean says, soft and tight, like he’s afraid of the words, “Sam. When I was,” he stops himself, lips pressed together, and looks down at his coffee cup like it will give him the answers he wants.
They’ve never talked about those six months Dean was gone, or what Sam did. Winchester rule number eight: why deal when you can ignore and repress. There were a few times in the first couple months, when the road stretched on for endless miles, that Sam thought Dean might be gearing up to ask, but the questions never came, and Sam started to let himself believe they never would.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
He expects Dean to bristle, pull big brother advantage and demand that Sam tell him, but he just nods and shoots him a sidelong glance. “For how long?”
“Forever?” Sam tries, never learned how to not push his luck with Dean.
Dean doesn’t look pleased with the answer, but he doesn’t argue, keeps staring across the street, jaw tight. “Well, me too,” he says, challenge clear.
“What is this, a game of chicken?”
Dean’s always been able to wait him out, never minds letting Sam’s stubbornness burn out when he knows Sam will tell him eventually. Sam’s never been able to do the same, always pushes until he gets what he wants.
Dean grins over at him, cocky, sure it’s a game he’ll win. “Yep.”
Sam feels a familiar spark of competitiveness at Dean’s attitude, and shakes his head. He laughs and Dean leans into him, warm and solid. The sun is all the way up and Sam has to squint against the glare, but he can still see the fear and tension in the set of Dean’s shoulders. He lets the silence settle before he promises, like there’s a line they wouldn’t cross, “I didn’t do anything you wouldn’t do.”
“Thanks, Sam,” Dean says dryly, looking over with raised eyebrows. “That’s comforting.”
“Well,” he says, not able to stop a grin. “Don’t get yourself sent to hell again, and we’ll probably be ok.”
“Don’t go getting yourself killed, and we won’t have a problem,” Dean says, easy, like these are normal problems.
They’re gazes catch, and Dean grins back, starts laughing a second after Sam does, even though he thinks it’s probably not very funny, how far they’ve gone for each other, how much farther they will go.
***
They end up in Oregon on a year to the day the deal came due. Dean doesn’t mention it, but Sam knows he notices the date from the quick looks he keeps shooting Sam’s way all morning. Sam watches him flirt with the barista at the little coffee shop they found and remembers the way Dean’s hand shook a year ago when he didn’t think Sam was watching. The wide-eyed terror and false bravado as the hours trickled away. He remembers the panic, the hard, sick clench in his gut as every last ditch effort failed to pan out.
He leaves Dean in the coffee shop and wanders out to the little beach across the street. There’s a storm out over the ocean, making the waves roll in hard and fast, but the sky above land is clear and blue, the air a little cold against Sam’s skin. He drops down onto the sand and digs his fingers in deep to where it’s still damp and cool, and sends up a quick thanks to anyone and everyone that’s listening.
Warm fingers slide down the back of his head to wrap around his neck as Dean sits beside him. He holds out a cardboard carrier with two cups in it. “Got you your frou-frou chick drink,” he says, face pinched like it caused him actual pain to order it.
Sam laughs, has to reach out and wrap his hands around the cup to stop himself from wrapping them around Dean. Six months, and having Dean back is still a little unbelievable, the reality of it hitting him out of nowhere every so often and taking his breath away.
Dean grins, lets his gaze flick down to Sam’s mouth for half a beat before turning to look out at the ocean. Sam keeps his gaze on Dean, counts the freckles across his nose and each breath he takes. Dean doesn’t grumble at the attention, just twists his fingers in Sam’s hair and tugs lightly.
“So,” Dean says after a few minutes of watching the waves roll in. “What do you think about hitting the road?” he asks, like they haven’t spent the last six months doing just that. But Sam knows the question underneath, hears the purpose in his tone.
“What’d you have in mind?”
Dean looks away from the water and smiles wide and hopeful. “Zombies in Montana?” Sam rolls his eyes, and Dean pulls his hand off the back of his neck to hit Sam in the chest. “Come on, Sammy, zombies!”
Sam laughs and hits him back. “Alright,” he sighs, like he wasn’t going to give in all along. “We can leave tomorrow.”
Dean watches him for a second, smile softer, fingers slipping under the hem of his shirt to trace over his spine.
“Tomorrow,” he agrees, and looks back out at the waves.
Words: 7,136
Rating: Adult
Spoilers: Through end of season 3
Summary: One month, and it's still a little overwhelming to have Dean back, still a little unbelievable.
Title and cut tag are from Regina Spektor's The Call, which Terra introduced me to and gave me the title idea, so thanks roomy! Also, huge thank you to luzdeestrellas for the speedy and super helpful beta! Any remaining mistakes are mine.
The whole world is grey outside the motel window, waves rolling and smashing into the rocks like angry fists. The clouds are twisting and turning above, moving as one, promising storms. There are hurricanes in the south and wildfires out west. Dean says that it’s the end of the world. Sam’s already lived through that twice, though, the passenger seat empty and cold beside him, so he’s not too worried.
The motel they found is old and rundown, on the side of an old state highway that twists along the coast and that nobody drives in November. They both like the quiet and solitude of off-season. Dean’s taken to wandering on the beach by himself over the last week, staying out past dark some days, just watching the waves.
Sam can see him out there, maroon flannel a stark contrast to the endless grey. His jeans are rolled up under his knees as he wades in ankle deep to the oncoming waves, tempting fate to try just one more time.
Wind whips across Sam’s face when he walks outside, hands shoved deep in the pocket of his hoodie. The salty air is sticky and heavy on his skin, sharp and lingering on his tongue when he licks his lips. He can hear the rumble of thunder over the crash of the waves, and the distance to Dean looks farther than before.
Dean doesn’t move when Sam comes to stand beside him; he just leans into Sam’s shoulder and breathes deep.
One month in, and it’s still a little overwhelming to have Dean back, still a little unbelievable after almost six months without him. The panic of it all has mostly disappeared, the fear that Dean will vanish between one blink and the next, but there are still days when Sam wonders if he’s finally lost it, started imagining Dean there with him because he doesn’t know how to survive without him.
He pulls his left hand from his pocket and brushes his fingers down the inside of Dean’s wrist, just to be sure.
Lightening skitters through the clouds over the ocean, brief and sudden.
Sam knocks his elbow into Dean’s ribs, fingers still pressed against his pulse, gets his attention before he says, “We should go inside.”
Dean shrugs and wiggles his toes in the sand. “Ocean’s not boiling yet,” he says, voice still rough from disuse but he turns when Sam does, follows him back to the room, only a step behind.
The rain starts the second they close the door behind them, pounding against the window like it wants in. Sam eyes the salt along the sill and flips the door latch. “Hungry?”
Dean grunts, word quota used up for the day, and grabs the newspaper off the table to finish the Sudoku Sam abandoned an hour ago--the only part of the paper either of them bothers with. Sam still gets frustrated after twenty minutes, but Dean’s gotten pretty good, corrects Sam’s wrong answers with a blue pen, the same way he did with his math homework when he had trouble with long division. Sam half expects to find little comments in the margin of the paper the same way he did back then, close, Sammy, use that big brain of yours and think it through. Sometimes he puts the wrong number, just to get a reaction. He never thought he’d miss his brother calling him a moron.
He’s a little lost on what to do next. They’ve been in Maine since the day after he pulled Dean back from hell, and then drove as far as he could with Dean unconscious in the back seat.
Dean’s better than he was back then, but he’s still pale and too thin, still on edge, quiet, part of him hidden back in himself where Sam can’t reach. Sam’s happy to lay low, too many of his own ghosts to fight from those six months, and too many demons still roaming around that would take Dean away from him as quickly as they did before. Dean doesn’t seem to be itching for a hunt the way he would have before after a month of down time, he’s just been driving them around the state for the past two weeks, like he’s looking for something he lost.
Sam orders two pizzas even though Dean still doesn’t have enough of an appetite for more than two slices, and finds a Hitchcock marathon on one of the old movie channels. Dean falls asleep halfway through Vertigo, sand still clinging to the bottoms of his feet. Sam pulls his gaze away from him and looks out the window to where the rain is still falling in sheets, hard and relentless, and thinks maybe he’s looking for something, too.
***
They finally cross Maine’s border into New Hampshire a week later. Dean sticks to the coast for a while, driving down through what he likes to call the blue blood states, and continuing to wind them down the edge of the country.
They stop at a diner on the border of North Carolina for lunch and have to rock-paper-scissors for fries because there’s only enough left for one order. Dean throws scissors like always, grins when Sam lays his hand out flat for paper because Dean’s appetite has just gotten back to the point where he wants to eat a whole order of fries with a burger.
Before, Dean would have crowed triumphantly and gone on for a ridiculous amount of time about biding his time and cashing in, and Sam feels a sharp pain at that piece of his brother he still hasn’t figured out how to save. But Dean’s smile is bright and happy, and for now that’s more than enough.
Their legs are spread wide under the table, pressed together from knee to ankle, and Sam’s not sure who it’s comforting more. Sam watches Dean glance out the window, doesn’t bother to hide it like he used to, knows Dean watches him just as much, like he’s still expecting to wake up back in hell. Sam wants to ask what it was like, but he thinks he wants to hear the answer even less than Dean wants to tell it.
Sam nudges Dean’s knee, more to pull himself from his own head than anything else, and Dean turns back, flicks a straw wrapper at Sam’s head. He jostles him as they walk to the cashier, trying to trip him up, and ends up elbowing Sam into the counter.
Sam grins apologetically at the girl behind the cash register. “Sorry, he’s,” he starts, even though there’s never been an explanation for Dean.
She waves her hand and smiles back at them. “I know how it is. I’ve got a brother, too.” It’s the first time in a long time someone’s thought that about them, and it makes Sam’s chest feel warm and tight. “Can’t live with ‘em, huh?” she jokes, and turns away to get their change.
Sam has to breathe deep a couple of times before he can look over at Dean. They both know the punch line to that one, and it hits a little too close. Dean presses a hand to the middle of Sam’s back, warm and solid, and slides it up, fingertips brushing his neck briefly before he moves away. The bell above the door chimes as Dean leaves, but Sam forces himself to stay put and get his change instead of turning to make sure Dean’s still there.
“You wanna go to Williamsburg?” Dean asks when Sam meets him outside. He’s leaning against the car, eyes closed and face tilted toward the sun. “I’ll even let you get your geek on at the museums.”
It’s back two hours the way they came, but they skirted Richmond to avoid traffic. They don’t have anywhere else to be, and it’s off season so there won’t be huge crowds, which still make Dean jumpy.
Sam grins when Dean looks at him. “Yeah, ok.”
***
They’re still circling the east coast a month later, and Sam doesn’t think they’re any closer to whatever Dean’s looking for.
Dean points them toward the Appalachians when radio announcers start talking about blizzards and ice and the storm of the century. Pastor Jim had a cabin up in West Virginia that their dad inherited. They haven’t been up to it since Sam was fifteen, but they’re still waiting for new cards to come through, and Dean’s never liked being stuck out in the open with no way to get out of town.
The cabin is exactly how Sam remembers it, the air thick and stale with dust, the old ratty furniture covered in moth eaten sheets. He knows if he walked into the kitchen, the cabinets would be stocked with beans, instant soup, and coffee.
Dean drops his bag and rolls his shoulder, huffing a laugh as he looks around. “Guess some things never change, huh?”
The storm doesn’t start until after dark. Sam can hear the wind whistling by the window next to his bed, snow and ice hitting the glass in a quick tempo. Dean’s sleeping restlessly in the bed next to his, plagued by nightmares he won’t admit to, even though Sam can see the dark circles under his eyes and the tight lines around his mouth that only get more pronounced as the days pass.
Dean makes a noise, quiet and terrified, like he hasn’t since those first few days after Sam pulled him out, back when he was still too far gone to be aware of anything but Sam and safe. He wakes up as soon as Sam kneels on the mattress to crawl over him. Sam can hear him draw a breath, feels his whole body tense up, but it’s a few seconds after Sam flops down beside him that he says, “Dude, what the hell?”
“My mattress is lumpy.”
Dean stares at him for a moment. His hand twitches like he maybe wants to reach out and grab on, but he scrubs at his eyes instead. “Whatever. Just don’t steal all the blankets.”
He rolls over to go back to sleep, and Sam lies quietly, waits for Dean’s breathing to go deep and even. He waits another twenty minutes before he reaches out and wraps a hand around Dean’s arm, ready to pull Dean back from the nightmares the same way he did from the thing that caused them.
He wakes up to filtered winter sunlight spilling into the room, warm where it falls across his arm, and his nose pressed against the curve of Dean’s neck. He’s not sure who rolled where during the night, but he’s pretty sure he’s the one who will get hell for it when Dean realizes he’s awake.
He can feel Dean’s fingers ghosting along the back of his neck, and he keeps his breath deep and even, smelling sweat and sleep and Dean every time he breathes in. He wants to curl into it, press close until Dean’s so much a part of him that Sam never has to worry about losing him again. Dean’s thumb slides around the side of his neck until it’s brushing over Sam’s pulse, like Sam’s breath on his neck isn’t enough and he needs the reassurance.
“Do I need to buy you a teddy bear?” he asks, but he keeps one hand on Sam’s neck, the other curved around the top of Sam’s arm.
Sam laughs, smile pressed against Dean’s skin, and he lingers for a moment before he rolls away, putting a couple inches between them. Dean shifts a second later, arm brushing against Sam’s.
“You wanna talk about them?” Sam asks, staring up at the ceiling and not allowing himself to chance a look over at Dean. He doesn’t need to look to know Dean’s whole body tensed up the second the words were out of his mouth, like after everything that’s happened, talking about something like this is still one of the worst things he can imagine.
“Nope,” he says, and rolls out of bed. “Hey, are you going to make us some breakfast? I’m starving.”
Sam wants to argue, push until Dean breaks, tells him about the nightmares and memories, and how far he thinks he has to run before they’ll disappear. But the pleading look on Dean’s face when he glances back at Sam makes the words stick in his throat. Dean’s safe and not going anywhere, and maybe that should be enough.
“You want bacon?”
***
They get stuck with a flat tire in the middle of Ohio in February. Dean bitches about it without any real heat, and Sam sits with him while he works, leaning up against the side of the car.
Dean scowls over at him as he shifts around on the gravel, trying to get comfortable.“You doing okay there, princess?” he asks, wiping the dirt and grime on his hands from the hubcap on his shirt. “You need me to get you anything? A pillow? Maybe a blanket?”
“I’m a little thirsty actually,” Sam says, and licks his lips for the full affect.
Dean’s eyes narrow, and he throws a handful of dirt and gravel at Sam’s face. “Maybe you should sit in the car,” he says, turning back to the tire. “Wouldn’t want the cold to offend your delicate sensibilities.”
Sam presses his lips together and widens his eyes when Dean shoots him a quick glance. “I thought you might need help tightening the lug nuts.”
Dean looks gravely offended. “You just sit back while the real man does the work, Sammy.”
Sam grins so hard his cheeks ache a little. He turns away so Dean won’t see, looks out at the field that stretches out in front of them. There are dark grey clouds on the horizon moving toward them at a pretty fast clip, and the wind is sharp and biting, a kind of cold that sinks deep under your skin. Sam watches the way the clouds curve down until they touch the horizon, the land hilly and golden from the remains of last year’s crops.
He spent a lot of time around farms and empty fields, practicing, honing his skills, and he remembers how high the corn came up in June. He thinks Bobby sent him information about a hunt in Ohio, but he can’t remember, lost track after the first twenty messages, not willing to take anything but exorcisms, his best way of gathering information those first few months. He thinks about it sometimes, all the things he could have stopped in those six months, all the people he could have saved, but they never add up to the one he did.
He glances over at Dean, watches the way his muscles flex under his shirt while he works the lug nuts off. It hits him all at once, not for the first time since May, all the things he lost, everything he got back. He has to look away before he does something ridiculous like grab on to Dean and never let go.
The cold wind makes his eyes sting and he blinks back the sudden moisture. Those six months he was alone are still Technicolor clear in his memory, no matter how hard he tries to forget. So much worse than his life after that Wednesday in Broward County, because he knew he was the only one who could fix it, and most days it didn’t seem like he ever would.
Dean’s never asked how Sam got him out, not past asking a thousand times if he made another deal. Sam’s not sure what Dean would think of him if he did know how far he went, how much farther he was willing to go, living and breathing the destiny their father feared and no demon to blame. He’s never been able to feel any guilt over it, hasn’t gotten past so fucking grateful, and if that makes him an even worse person, then Sam’s willing to live with that.
“Dude,” Dean says, nudging Sam’s shoulder as he tightens the last of the lug nuts, and Sam leans into him for a moment. “Stop thinking so hard, you’re gonna pull something.”
Sam’s laugh catches in his throat, comes out choked and rough, but Dean smiles back, gaze lingering an extra second, and Sam has the sudden thought of leaning forward, pressing his mouth to Dean’s. He wonders if Dean’s lips would be as soft as they look, or if they’d be chapped and dry, cold from being outside.
He blinks and Dean’s turned back to the tire, leaving Sam feeling exposed and raw at the need that shot through him, sharp as lightening.
They stop early that night; find a motel off the state route with working heaters and a Chinese place across the street. Sam hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it all afternoon, what it would feel like, what Dean would do. He keeps waiting for the sick wrongwrongwrong feeling to kick in, and can’t muster up much surprise when it never does. He was ready to end the world to get Dean back, humanity no match for having his brother with him again, and that’s probably a bigger deal than wanting to kiss him.
They get take out, and Dean makes a show of using the chopsticks, grinning when Sam glares at him because he’s never been able to work them right. They spread all the food out on one of the beds, stealing from the other’s cartons every few bites. Sam looks up from swiping the last piece of broccoli that Dean won’t eat, anyway, and Dean’s sucking lo mien noodles through his lips, mouth wet and shiny from grease and sauce. Sam’s stomach dips hotly, and he leans forward across the food, a little crazy from the thoughts that have plagued him all day.
Dean makes a mumbled noise of surprise, the sound vibrating against Sam’s lips, but doesn’t push Sam away. Sam jerks back a second later once his brain’s had a chance to catch up with the rest of him and Dean stares at him, eyes wide.
Sam doesn’t know how to explain, or if he even can, so he just sits and waits for Dean to freak. Dean blinks a few times and opens his mouth like he’s waiting for words to come out. They don’t, and he closes it a second later, looks away and clears his throat.
“Wanna watch Jeopardy?” he asks, and when he looks back he’s smiling, bright and real and only a little strained. “Ten bucks says I’m smarter than you, college boy.”
Sam’s not sure if he’s disappointed or relieved, but he laughs anyway. “You’re on,” he says, licks his lips and tastes lo mien.
***
They keep heading west, twisting down through the south and then back up north in something like organized chaos. They stop for gas in the middle of Wisconsin one morning in March. Sam goes in to get them breakfast and when he comes back out Dean’s wandered off toward the river that runs next to the gas station.
There are chunks of ice floating down the river and snow still melting on the opposite bank. Dean’s standing under the lone tree on this side of the river, shoulders hunched against the wind and hands shoved deep in the pockets of his leather jacket. It’s cold out, well below freezing, and the radio in the gas station was talking about another Alberta clipper.
Sam makes his way over slowly, still half asleep. They’d packed up the night before, drove through till morning for no reason that Sam could get out of Dean other than he wanted to. Dean’s flushed from the cold, red curling over his cheeks and around his ears. Sam wants to reach out and trace it with his fingertips, feel Dean warm and alive under his hands.
Dean grins wide at him when he knocks their shoulders together, glances over at Sam for half a second before he looks back out at the river. “What do you think, Sammy? I’ve always wanted to be a polar bear.”
Sam doesn’t doubt that his brother would strip down and go for a swim just for the hell of it, just to prove to the world what Dean Winchester is made of. Sam grins at the mental image of Dean standing around in the Atlantic with all the sixty year olds they usually show on the news in January.
“It’s supposed to storm tonight.”
Dean makes a non-committal noise and rocks back on his heels. “Guess we should keep driving then.”
They’re less than a day’s drive from Bobby’s, but Sam stays quiet when Dean doesn’t mention it, not quite ready to share his brother with anyone else. He knows there are things they should be talking about, though. Almost four months and Dean hasn’t mentioned hunting once. Sam doesn’t mind, he’s done if Dean is, they’ve given more than enough. Dean has always viewed it differently though. For as long as Sam can remember Dean’s been talking about saving people, never wanting to let things in the dark tear apart another family. It’s a part of him. Sam’s not sure what to do if that part of Dean is gone.
“Dean, man, what are we doing?” The question is out before he can stop it, and Dean straightens his shoulders like he’s getting ready to throw a punch.
“What do you mean?”
Sam thinks about just dropping it, but he knows Dean won’t let him, and most days it just feels like the blind leading the blind, neither of them knowing what they’re really looking for, let alone what the other is.
“I don’t know, just. This. What are we looking for? Or running from?” he asks, even though he knows he shouldn’t, hopes Dean will tell him about the nightmares, or give him some idea of how Sam can help.
Dean snaps his head around to glare at him before the words are even fully out. “I’m not running.” He turns back toward the river and squints at the rising sun, lets out a long breath, shoulders curving in again. “That’s not what this is about,” he says, and pauses like he’s not sure he wants to finish. “Haven’t you ever just wanted to get in the car and drive?”
“That’s kind of been our whole lives, Dean.”
Dean shakes his head and sighs, breath fogging out in front of him. Sam knows he gave the wrong answer, feels a sick clench in his gut like he let Dean down by not understanding.
“We always have somewhere to be or something to kill,” Dean says. He glances over at Sam, easy and relaxed. “Don’t you ever just want to drive?”
Sam shrugs and looks back out at the river, watches the ice float on top of the water and thinks about freezing points and water density and the way Dean smiles when he’s behind the wheel of the Impala with nowhere to go. He thinks about six months that seemed to stretch on for years and the way Dean’s pulse feels under his fingertips.
“I guess it’s not so bad,” he admits, and when he looks back Dean’s smiling at him, soft and secret. Sam’s breath catches in his chest from the cold, and Dean, and too many memories that aren’t far enough away.
***
They stop in Dallas for a few days at the end of March. Sam’s never really liked staying in big cities. The cheap motels are always worse and the city noises keep him awake. He stares up at the ceiling, enough light coming in through the flimsy curtains to see the spider web cracks spreading across the plaster. He can hear airplanes flying low overhead, and traffic and people moving by on the street outside the hotel; it’s different from the low hum of freeway traffic or the occasional car driving past on a small town road.
Dean’s sleeping fitfully in the other bed, twisting and turning and muttering under his breath. Sam’s thinking about trying to wake him, not sure if a tossed pillow will do the trick, or just get him a knife thrown at his head. A car honks outside, one long, endless sound, and when it finally ends Sam thinks his ears might be ringing a little, but he knows Dean’s awake, hears the quick inhale and the lack of rustling sheets. Sam rolls onto his side and sees Dean staring blankly back at him, still caught in the nightmare.
“Dean,” he says.
Dean jerks, eyes focusing fast until he looks away. He grunts and rubs at his face before heading toward the bathroom. The pale yellow light spills across the floor, illuminating the ratty carpet, and Sam listens to the faucet run, watches Dean’s shadow move, stretched long on the motel wall.
When he comes back out, he just stands between the two beds, eyes wide and dark, hands twitching at his sides. Sam wants to reach out and pull him in. “Hey,” he says instead. “You wanna watch TV?”
Dean nods, scratches the back of his neck and crawls onto Sam’s bed, sitting close, brushing his fingers against Sam’s side when Sam leans over him to get the remote. Sam stays close enough that Dean can feel his body heat, feel his chest move with each breath, and he channel surfs until he finds a rerun of Saturday Night Live.
Sam can feel the tension easing out of Dean as they watch, his body relaxing against Sam’s more with each skit. He presses his lips together to keep the questions in; Dean won’t answer them anyway. He focuses on Dean instead, turns his head to watch him laugh at Will Ferrell, knows he’ll never get tired of that sound, or the way Dean’s eyes crinkle up when he’s happy, things that were slipping from his memory like quicksand less than six months ago.
Dean catches him looking and sobers, smile disappearing, but eyes still bright. Sam thinks he’s going to make a crack about Sam being a girl, or move away, but he just grabs the remote from Sam’s hand and plunges the room back into semi-darkness.
“What?” Sam asks, but as the screen goes black with a static hiss, Dean leans forward and presses his mouth to Sam’s, and Sam can’t do anything but hold on. He wraps a hand around Dean’s bicep, afraid he’ll pull away or disappear, but Dean just leans closer, slides a hand over Sam’s stomach.
Dean makes a noise of surprise when Sam licks his way into his mouth, muscles bunching up under Sam’s fingers, and Sam pulls back before Dean can, has to tear his gaze away from Dean’s mouth before he can find anything like words. “I-”
“Shut up,” Dean growls, and wraps a hand around the back of Sam’s neck to pull him in again; shoving his tongue into Sam’s mouth like he has something to prove. Sam snorts at the thought, can’t help it, this a competition just like everything else. He grabs Dean’s face with both hands so he won’t pull away and laughs into his mouth.
He can feel Dean’s smile, the way it stretches slow and wide, the grip on the back of Sam’s neck turning gentle, fingertips skimming over his skin as Dean laughs back. Sam tilts his head and licks the sound from Dean’s mouth. Dean hums, the noise vibrating against Sam’s tongue, and shifts to straddle Sam’s hips, one hand slipping up under Sam’s shirt to press against skin.
It’s not exactly comfortable. Sam’s back is aching from being pressed against the headboard, and Dean is sitting heavy on his thighs. They both lean forward and their teeth clack together; Sam’s nose is squished awkwardly against Dean’s cheek, and he opens his eyes to see Dean staring back at him.
Sam starts laughing again, feels a little hysterical over the fact that this is actually happening, and Dean leans back to watch him, smile bright in the dark room. Sam grabs his hips before he can change his mind and move away.
“Wait, just--” he starts, and slides down on the bed instead of finishing.
Dean moves with him and Sam swallows a groan at the feel of Dean stretched out over him, has to close his eyes and breathe deep for a second to stop himself from thrusting up into solid heat. He feels fingers brushing over his face, and he thinks Dean’s hands might be shaking a little.
“Sammy,” Dean murmurs, and Sam opens his eyes to see Dean leaning close, eyes wide and a little terrified.
Sam grabs the hand by his face and squeezes lightly; he tips his head up and kisses Dean slow, sucks on his bottom lip, scraping his teeth across the inside, and opens his mouth against Dean’s. Dean licks at the roof of his mouth, and Sam can’t stop a groan this time, pulls Dean’s hips snug against his and rocks up.
They get tangled in the sheets trying to pull clothes off. Dean growls and kicks it all to the end of the bed. Neither of them can get the right grip or angle, and after the third readjustment, Dean drops his face into the curve of Sam’s neck and groans in frustration before flopping onto his back dramatically.
Sam stares up at the ceiling for a moment. “Dude,” he says, still breathing heavy. “We suck at this.”
Dean starts laughing suddenly, loud and free, like Sam hasn’t heard in months. His chest feels tight at the sound and he grins, rolls onto his side to watch, and can’t help laughing with him because this really isn’t something they’re supposed to be good at. Dean’s face is scrunched up, shoulders shaking, and tears are just starting to leak out of the corners of his eyes.
Sam reaches out and thumbs the wetness away, keeps his hand curved around Dean’s jaw and presses close to feel him shake against him as he starts to calm down, trailing off into a few chuckles. He breathes against the side of Dean’s neck until Dean starts to squirm.
“Sam,” he says, quiet and rough, and runs a hand up Sam’s spine.
Sam hums, feels light and alive wherever Dean touches him. He scrapes his teeth against the thin skin of Dean’s neck, before sucking hard, feels Dean’s pulse against his tongue.
Dean groans and pulls at Sam until he moves and stretches out over him. Dean’s breathing hard against his cheek, eyes squeezed shut, and from the city lights leaking in through the curtains, Sam can see the flush that spreads down over Dean’s chest. Sam turns his head to kiss him again, sucks hard on Dean’s tongue, and Dean grips Sam’s hips tight, fingernails pressing into his skin, and thrusts up, his dick smearing precome and sweat across Sam’s hip.
“God, Dean,” he gasps, and presses his forehead against Dean’s shoulder to look down at how their hips are pressed up tight together, close enough that he thinks nothing will ever be able to pull them apart again. He can feel Dean shaking underneath him, and knows he’s just as bad.
He shifts, lines their cocks up and wraps one hand around them, pulling a groan from both of them, and leans up on his free arm enough to watch Dean fall apart. Dean opens his eyes right before he comes, stares back at Sam, open and happy, and it’s that more than anything that pushes Sam over the edge.
***
Things don’t really change after that. Sam half expects Dean to freak out the next morning, or pretend it never happened, but they just pack up and move out like they always do, Dean’s arm stretched across the back of the seat to curl a hand around Sam’s neck, thumb rubbing slowly behind his ear.
In mid-April they stop in Sedona for a night. They’ve been slowly winding their way through Arizona since the beginning of the week--Dean hasn’t said anything about the Grand Canyon, but they’re heading in that direction. As far as Sam can tell there’s no such thing as a cheap motel in Sedona, but it’s still a little early for tourist season, which means rooms aren’t as ridiculously expensive as they’ll be in another month or so. That doesn’t stop Dean from bitching, of course, even if he’s the one who decided to stop.
The light in the room is still twilight gray when Sam wakes up. The heavy curtains covering the big sliding glass door on the other side of the room have been pushed halfway back, the door slightly open. Sam can see Dean standing out on the little balcony, curved over the metal railing, black t-shirt pulled tight across his shoulders.
He watches him for a few moments, the stillness most people don’t ever see when they look at Dean. Dean who is larger than life, bright and vibrant, always ready to strike or fuck as the situation warrants. Sam tries to look at him like other people might, tries not to think about the sting of his right hook or the way his hands stitch up a wound sure and steady and gentle. But he still sees power and safety in the curve of his shoulders, still sees his whole world wrapped up under Dean’s skin.
There’s a little four cup coffee maker on the counter, with a filter bag of coffee that promises gourmet, like that will make it taste less like weak, watered down motel coffee. Sam flips it on as he heads to the bathroom.
The tiny white mugs make his hands feel large and clumsy, but Dean smiles, slow and soft, when Sam hands one over, wraps both hands around it like the air isn’t already warm with the beginning of spring and he needs the heat. The clouds, stretched thin across the sky, are starting to lighten to purple, a hint of pink edging along the curves of the red rocks that shoot up across the street.
Sam leans against the railing, pressed against Dean from shoulder to elbow, and watches the way the light hits them.
“You’re up early,” he says, once Dean’s had a chance to drink about half of his coffee.
He can feel Dean shrug against him. “Couldn’t sleep.”
The circles under Dean’s eyes have lightened, skin not as pale and tight as it was those first few months, but Sam knows the nightmares are still there, no matter how hard Dean tries to hide it. Dean can talk about how great fresh from the oven donuts are, or how important a morning run is until he’s blue in the face, but Sam stays awake some nights to listen to Dean toss and turn and mumble in his sleep until it gets unbearable and he has to slip across the three feet of empty space to the other bed. Dean doesn’t give more than a token protest, and Sam supposes he should be grateful for the little things, even if Dean still refuses to talk about it, or even acknowledge there’s a problem.
“Dude,” Dean says and rocks into his shoulder. “It’s way too early for that expression.”
“It’s too early for your face,” Sam retorts instinctively.
Dean snorts and shakes his head. “Man, your comebacks really suffered without me around.”
It’s the first time Dean’s ever mentioned those six months, and it takes Sam a minute to catch his breath. The reminder pulls Sam back to the thoughts Dean was trying to get him away from, and he looks down at the mug in his hands, swirls the coffee around the bottom of the cup.
“There’s stuff we could do,” he says, gaze determinedly not leaving his hands, not wanting to see Dean’s expression when he realizes what Sam’s talking about. “For the nightmares.”
Sam did a lot of research in those six months, found a lot of useless information, or at least useless for him at the time. But he knows, depending on how far you’re willing to go, you can do pretty much anything if you have the right tools.
“Sam,” Dean says tightly, barriers going up.
“Maybe if you talked about them,” Sam says, trying to push as far as he can before Dean shuts down and refuses to talk anymore.
“This isn’t Dr. Phil, Sam. I’m not gonna talk about them,” Dean snaps, jaw clenched. His fingers are wrapped around the coffee mug so tight the nail beds are white. He keeps his gaze across the street, the golden light from the rising sun highlighting his freckles. He sighs a second later, rolls his shoulders like he’s forcing himself to relax, and says, softer, “I’m fine. They’re not a big deal.”
“I just-” wanna help, Sam wants to say, but Dean’s never liked the idea that he needs help for anything. He lets it hang between them, knows Dean can hear the rest of it anyway.
Dean doesn’t say anything to it though, just stays quiet and breathes deep. The city is starting to wake up as the sun crests over the rocks, and Sam watches cars drive past on the road in front of them, he can feel Dean watching him and the way Dean’s shoulder is tensing up against his like he’s getting ready for a fight.
He doesn’t look over until Dean says, soft and tight, like he’s afraid of the words, “Sam. When I was,” he stops himself, lips pressed together, and looks down at his coffee cup like it will give him the answers he wants.
They’ve never talked about those six months Dean was gone, or what Sam did. Winchester rule number eight: why deal when you can ignore and repress. There were a few times in the first couple months, when the road stretched on for endless miles, that Sam thought Dean might be gearing up to ask, but the questions never came, and Sam started to let himself believe they never would.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
He expects Dean to bristle, pull big brother advantage and demand that Sam tell him, but he just nods and shoots him a sidelong glance. “For how long?”
“Forever?” Sam tries, never learned how to not push his luck with Dean.
Dean doesn’t look pleased with the answer, but he doesn’t argue, keeps staring across the street, jaw tight. “Well, me too,” he says, challenge clear.
“What is this, a game of chicken?”
Dean’s always been able to wait him out, never minds letting Sam’s stubbornness burn out when he knows Sam will tell him eventually. Sam’s never been able to do the same, always pushes until he gets what he wants.
Dean grins over at him, cocky, sure it’s a game he’ll win. “Yep.”
Sam feels a familiar spark of competitiveness at Dean’s attitude, and shakes his head. He laughs and Dean leans into him, warm and solid. The sun is all the way up and Sam has to squint against the glare, but he can still see the fear and tension in the set of Dean’s shoulders. He lets the silence settle before he promises, like there’s a line they wouldn’t cross, “I didn’t do anything you wouldn’t do.”
“Thanks, Sam,” Dean says dryly, looking over with raised eyebrows. “That’s comforting.”
“Well,” he says, not able to stop a grin. “Don’t get yourself sent to hell again, and we’ll probably be ok.”
“Don’t go getting yourself killed, and we won’t have a problem,” Dean says, easy, like these are normal problems.
They’re gazes catch, and Dean grins back, starts laughing a second after Sam does, even though he thinks it’s probably not very funny, how far they’ve gone for each other, how much farther they will go.
***
They end up in Oregon on a year to the day the deal came due. Dean doesn’t mention it, but Sam knows he notices the date from the quick looks he keeps shooting Sam’s way all morning. Sam watches him flirt with the barista at the little coffee shop they found and remembers the way Dean’s hand shook a year ago when he didn’t think Sam was watching. The wide-eyed terror and false bravado as the hours trickled away. He remembers the panic, the hard, sick clench in his gut as every last ditch effort failed to pan out.
He leaves Dean in the coffee shop and wanders out to the little beach across the street. There’s a storm out over the ocean, making the waves roll in hard and fast, but the sky above land is clear and blue, the air a little cold against Sam’s skin. He drops down onto the sand and digs his fingers in deep to where it’s still damp and cool, and sends up a quick thanks to anyone and everyone that’s listening.
Warm fingers slide down the back of his head to wrap around his neck as Dean sits beside him. He holds out a cardboard carrier with two cups in it. “Got you your frou-frou chick drink,” he says, face pinched like it caused him actual pain to order it.
Sam laughs, has to reach out and wrap his hands around the cup to stop himself from wrapping them around Dean. Six months, and having Dean back is still a little unbelievable, the reality of it hitting him out of nowhere every so often and taking his breath away.
Dean grins, lets his gaze flick down to Sam’s mouth for half a beat before turning to look out at the ocean. Sam keeps his gaze on Dean, counts the freckles across his nose and each breath he takes. Dean doesn’t grumble at the attention, just twists his fingers in Sam’s hair and tugs lightly.
“So,” Dean says after a few minutes of watching the waves roll in. “What do you think about hitting the road?” he asks, like they haven’t spent the last six months doing just that. But Sam knows the question underneath, hears the purpose in his tone.
“What’d you have in mind?”
Dean looks away from the water and smiles wide and hopeful. “Zombies in Montana?” Sam rolls his eyes, and Dean pulls his hand off the back of his neck to hit Sam in the chest. “Come on, Sammy, zombies!”
Sam laughs and hits him back. “Alright,” he sighs, like he wasn’t going to give in all along. “We can leave tomorrow.”
Dean watches him for a second, smile softer, fingers slipping under the hem of his shirt to trace over his spine.
“Tomorrow,” he agrees, and looks back out at the waves.