The Ballad of the Invisible Boy: Part Two
Part One.
“Dean, I’m leavin’ in five minutes whether you’re out here or not. Sammy, stay out of trouble.”
Dean barks his customary ‘yessir’ and Sam rolls his eyes. He doesn’t respond to Dad, doesn’t do anything but stay where he is and stew. He listens to the front door slam shut and the rumble of the Impala being started.
“Bye to you, too,” Sam mumbles to himself.
He’s at that horrible age where he’s too young to go on hunts but he’s old enough, according to his father, to survive on his own. Still a shrimp, not old enough to take out a rawhead, but he’s plenty old enough to make his own dinner and get himself out of bed and to school and to head off any suspicious questions from all the “concerned” adults at school about his homelife. It makes no sense to him and he tells Dean and Dad that loudly and often.
It’s not that he needs his Dad and Dean there twenty-four-seven to take care of him. Of course he doesn’t. It’s just that he hates being alone, he hates being left out. He hates waiting. He hates the thought of Dean being in danger somewhere that Sam can’t get to him.
He’s sitting on the kitchen counter, watching Dean bustle back and forth, shoving things in his bag and sidestepping Sam’s swinging feet each pass. Sam knows he should help, shouldn’t be such a pain in the ass, but he’s starting to feel it: that nauseating worry settling low in his stomach, the one he gets whenever Dean leaves for a destination unknown to Sam.
He watches Dean carefully pack up the four sandwiches Sam had made him and Dad--sliced turkey and swiss on cheap white bread, lots of mustard and tomatoes and even cut in half, all of them--watches his eyes dart around, going through his mental checklist to make sure he hasn’t forgotten anything. They both jump a little when they hear the car horn blast from the driveway.
Sam starts breathing a little faster, has to grip the edge of the formica counter to keep from reaching out to grab his brother.
“Dean, what if I need you here?” He knows it’s a low-blow, that it’s vastly unfair to Dean but he uses it. “What if something happens?”
It’s that one, that open-ended question that makes Dean’s hackles rise, makes him turn to face Sam with a pained expression that Sam recognizes as unique to Dean: guilt, fear, resentment, and grasping love.
“Sammy, don’t. Don’t say shit like that. Nothing’s gonna happen to you. We’re in Buttfuck, Indiana. Me’n’Dad are running towards the bad thing. All you gotta do is stay here’n make sure you don’t catch yourself on fire or something.” His carefree grin is back, a mask, and he wears it until he walks away from Sam again.
“No, I mean.” Sam hops down off the counter to follow him but he stops, his feet too heavy to bring him to Dean. He just stares at his back as Dean tugs on his jacket, strong back muscles disappearing under worn leather. His chest aches. “What if something happens to you?”
Dean turns to face him and there’s fear again but now there’s a healthy dose of irreverence because. Well, so what if something happens to him? As long as Sam’s okay, right?
“Don’t, Dean. Don’t. Don’t say something stupid or I’ll punch you, I swear to god.” Sam fists the sleeves of his own flannel shirt, angry tears burning in his eyes. He grits his teeth and meets his brother’s eyes, feeling the challenge here between them.
“Sammy, what the fuck are you talking about? Are you PMSing or something? I wasn’t going to say anything. Stop being so clingy.” And there’s Dean’s low-blow. He doesn’t mean it and regrets it the second he says it, but it gets the job done. He only has to glance over at Sam to see that he’s hurt, that he feels stupid and alone in his emotions. Dean has made him feel alone. He bites so hard into the soft flesh inside his cheek that he draws blood. He makes sure Sam see him roll his eyes as he hefts his duffel onto his shoulder. “We’ll be back tonight. It’s just outside of town. Money for food on the counter. Just fucking enjoy a Saturday off, man. God knows I would.”
The last bit is under his breath and he spares another look at Sam, hoping to meet his eyes so that Sam could know that it’s just a front, all of it. He wants nothing more than to stay here with his little brother, than to play video games on the Nintendo that Dean got them back in Nevada last month, than to eat pizza or lo mein and wrestle around on the ground until they’re too sweaty and then settle in to watch Baywatch reruns. Something. Anything. Nothing felt right unless Sam was there.
He walks out the front door anyway, letting the creaky screen door smack back against the frame and he keeps his eyes straight ahead as he takes the steps in twos to the car where Dad’s already waiting. The clouds roll fast overhead as they peel out.
--
Sam hates playing video games alone and so he cleans the kitchen for lack of anything else to do, and also because it gives him a bit of focus in something that doesn’t involve weapons. He scrubs the counters until they smell clean and lemony and look shiny and he feels stupidly proud, like Dean’s gonna come home and see how clean it all looks and give Sam a smile like it matters, like Sam’s good at making places a home. Ugh.
He jerks off next, in the bathroom with the door open just ‘cause he can. He moans and carries on and makes all the noise he wants, half just to hear what he’d sound like during sex and half in the delicious fear of being heard. He comes into his cupped palm and lifts it to his face as he pants, his dick twitching and spent. He squints at the little mostly clear puddle in his hand and thinks about tasting it, about drinking it all down like the girls in porn but he gets too grossed out at the last minute, on the edges of a sex haze where it’s suddenly not hot anymore and is just gross, slimy.
He washes his hands in the sink with extra soap and falls into Dean’s bed naked. Just ‘cause he can. He falls asleep with his face pressed into the pillow and doesn’t dream.
When he wakes up, the sun is setting and he’s starving. He pockets the money Dad left and eats bologna and crackers and drinks the last bit of Dean’s orange Sunkist in the fridge. He gets out the book he hasn’t started from the summer reading list and pulls out a notebook to take notes in. He opens the book and settles back on the couch, glancing at his watch. 8:34pm.
It’s going to be a long night.
At ten-thirty, the sky opens up, rain pouring in from all angles, it seems, making it impossible to see outside. Sam sits at the window and rips into his fingernails with his teeth.
At midnight, he moves his vigil outside. He buttons his flannel and brings his book out but doesn’t turn on the porch light so he can see it. He just watches the road, the dark street out here on the edges of Winchester and listens to the highway sounds very nearby. He sucks on his now raw fingertips and indulgently lets every single bad thing that could happen play through his mind, lets every horrible result run full and unbidden because he likes to hurt himself in these moments, when Dean could be going through so much worse.
By 12:45, he’s panicking. They’d left at two o’clock, when the sun was still high overhead. The sun is history and the moon is hiding behind rainclouds and it’s still pouring out with no signs of letting up. He hasn’t seen or heard a car in half an hour. He moves to the steps, lets himself get wet on the tips of his Converse and his knees where they’re poking out from the awning. He keeps his hands balled into fists in his pockets so they don’t shake.
At 1:13, he hears the Impala. Distant and nearly impossible to make out in the rain but Sam hears it. Would hear it in a goddamn tornado. He forgets every single bit of pride and shoots to his feet when he sees the headlights making their way toward him. He rushes to the car, a relieved grin bursting onto his face as he dashes to the passenger’s side, unable to see inside but he waits for Dean to get out.
Dad’s door opens first and Sam looks up at him immediately, terrified by the grim set of his mouth, the hard line of his jaw. Sam’s heart leaps into his mouth.
“...Dad?”
His dad barely spares him a glance, just slams the car door and starts toward the house. Sam looks back down and he swears he feels his heart stop when he realizes that the passenger seat is empty.
“Dad!” Sam dashes at his father, grabbing hard at the arm of his jacket, his voice reaching embarrassingly high pitches. “Dad, where’s.” His stomach lurches and he suddenly can’t breathe. “Where’s Dean?”
“Decided to be a damn smartass on the way back, so I made him get out. Made him walk home.” The words are passionless, said through gritted teeth, and they’re so dismissive that it makes Sam fall back from his father, makes him gasp.
“He’s out there? In this? You made him walk in this?”
“It’s just rain, Sam. Ain’t gonna kill him. Give him time to cool off and think about treating his father with a little more respect.” Dad’s up the steps now, screen door open, one foot inside the warmly lit house. “Get in here, Sammy. You’ll catch a cold.”
It’s a throwaway comment, something Dad says all the time. But it’s the stark, naked difference in how he treats the two of them, the almost cruel dismissal of Dean that makes Sam run. He just takes off, down the driveway and hard down the street. The highway is just two streets up and then it’s easy, a straight-shot. He can hear his father’s voice but it’s drowning in the rain and Sam likes the sound of that.
There’s hardly anyone driving on Highway 32 this time of night, and so Sam’s alone in his journey. He’s a good runner and he makes use of it now, soaked-through shoes meeting the soft earth, slick and muddy from the sudden onslaught. He’s completely drenched in rain but he doesn’t notice, doesn’t pay any attention. He keeps his eyes straight ahead, looking for a lone figure heading toward him, looking for the set of Dean’s shoulders and his wide walk and his jacket, his beautiful fucking jacket that Sam loves so much it physically hurts sometimes.
He feels like he’s been running for hours but he’s realistic, he’s watched mile markers and he knows it’s not true. What if Dean had been hurt? Not badly, not in any way that their Dad would have immediately seen, but. What if he was bleeding? What if he fell? The side of this road falls away sometimes to treacherous slides of land, down into woods. What if a car had swerved off the road and hit him? What if he hitched a ride from someone and he’s already home? What if he just left? What if he’s finally had enough of Dad’s disregard for him and Sam’s clinginess and he just left? Just left town. What if the last thing ever said between them was an argument? What if Dean never knew.
Sam stops where he is, a stray car rushing by and he leans over and vomits in the grass, splattering his shoes but the rain washes it away almost immediately. He coughs, blinks, stares down at the mess he made. He has to find Dean. He has to.
Every step he takes makes him more frantic, more desperate for his brother. He has to find him. What if he never gets to see Dean again? What if he never hears his voice, what if he never feels Dean wrap his arm around him in the backseat as they tear down the spine of America, Dad awake and always silent behind the wheel? What if he never sees Sam grow into the man he so desperately wants to be for Dean? What if Dean is never proud of Sam, really, truly proud? What if he never gets the chance to show Dean what he can be?
It’s faint at first, but he sees something moving through the sheets of rain. He stops where he is and just stares, squints and tries to make Dean appear with his want alone. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. It’s then and only then that he realizes that he’s been crying this whole time. His voice is shot when it finally makes it out of his throat. “Dean!”
The moving shadow stops and Sam gasps, takes off like a shot, digging his foot in to give himself a good start. He slips right there, falls half in the road and half in the grass, mud splattering up into his face. He forces himself up, driven by the thought of Dean alone and takes off at a run again, his entire front covered in gravel and mud and grass but he can see him now, see his hair dark and matted to his head, see his jacket, the jacket. Sees his beautiful face and Sam sobs now, nearly collapsing with relief.
“Dean.” The word always carries so much with it, so many different silent words and when he hears Dean’s voice, the returned call of “Sammy?”, Sam runs even faster, so close to him now and he hurts now all through his body, his heart pounding his chest that is so tight, his legs aching from running and from falling and from heartsick worry.
“Sammy, what the fuck!? What--” But Sam is right there now, right here and he throws himself at Dean, his body tiny and light but he’s a force tonight. Dean nearly falls over from the velocity but he catches Sam, buries his face in his soaked hair and wraps his arms around him. Sam tries to climb Dean, sobbing uncontrollably now, keeping his face tucked under his neck, nose just beneath his ear, his favorite place to be. He’s shaking all over, trembling and he whines when he feels Dean lift him up onto his body.
“Dean ohmygod I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, please. Please, I was so scared. Dean, I was so scared.” He can’t stop crying now and he’s a dead weight in Dean’s arms, legs linked at the small of his back, arms wrapped suffocatingly tight around Dean’s neck. He feels Dean’s arms around him, one low and one high to support him and Dean rocks him as best as he can, trying to calm him down, to make him stop crying because it’s killing him.
“Sammy, shh. It’s alright. Hey, kiddo, it’s alright. I’m okay. Shh, Sammy, it’s alright, I’m okay. See? See?” He nudges Sam’s face with his own until Sam lifts up and meets his eyes. And Dean’s telling the truth. He’s got a busted lip and the side of his face is pink and will definitely have a hellacious bruise in the morning but his eyes are bright, so, so bright and shining with tears and exhaustion but not pain. His expression softens when he sees Sam’s face, snotty and covered in mud and clean streaks of tear-tracks, bottom lip worried fat and red. Dean sighs, his hand coming up to the back of Sam’s head and pulling him back down to rest against his shoulder, face tucked into his neck. “It’s okay, little brother. I’m okay. We’re okay. Aren’t we? We’re just fine.”
Sam just nods, sniffling to himself and wiping his face off on Dean’s wet jacket. He has his fingers tangled together at the nape of Dean’s neck and they’re playing absently with the short, watery strands of hair there. He closes his eyes and lets the relief flood through him. Dean’s okay. He’s alive and he’s right here and he’s okay.
Dean sits down on the guardrail right where they’d been standing and Sam stays attached to him, way too big to be acting like this but Dean doesn’t seem to mind and Sam sure as hell isn’t going to stop on his own. Dean’s petting Sam’s hair, not caring that it’s just getting wetter and wetter, that it’s thick and caked with mud in places. He tucks his nose against Sam’s temple and just indulges, just breathes him in, just feels every bit of him solid and alive and alright in his arms. “‘m sorry, Sam. ‘Bout what I said earlier. I didn’t mean it. You know that, right? I didn’t mean it.”
Sam nods again, still not really wanting to talk, to try and give voice to anything warring in his body. He relaxes against Dean, so comfortable here in the pouring rain on the side of the highway in the middle of the night that he could fall asleep right here. He talks only because it will make Dean feel better, because Dean needs his forgiveness.
“I know, Dean. It’s okay. I’m sorry, too.”
Dean opens his mouth to reply but the car driving toward them on the other side of the road makes a sudden U-turn and pulls up right beside them, tires screeching as Dad slams on the breaks. The passenger door opens and his voice sounds far-away from the driver’s side in the rain. “Get in. Now.”
Dean sighs, tense all over again but he pushes it aside, for Sam. He stands up and Sam loosens against him, slides down his body in the dark, hoping Dad hadn’t seen him, seen them. Dean smiles down at him, a small, encouraging thing and swipes a hand through the front of Sam’s hair where it’s plastered against his forehead. “Come on, kid. Let’s go home.”
They tuck back together in the backseat, stripped down to their underwear and under the beach towels Dad had miraculously thought to bring from the house. The apology from Dad is silent like they always are, but Dean can feel it. He strokes Sam’s hair back into place on the way home, his eyes closed and he feels stupidly, inexplicably happy.
next.
“Dean, I’m leavin’ in five minutes whether you’re out here or not. Sammy, stay out of trouble.”
Dean barks his customary ‘yessir’ and Sam rolls his eyes. He doesn’t respond to Dad, doesn’t do anything but stay where he is and stew. He listens to the front door slam shut and the rumble of the Impala being started.
“Bye to you, too,” Sam mumbles to himself.
He’s at that horrible age where he’s too young to go on hunts but he’s old enough, according to his father, to survive on his own. Still a shrimp, not old enough to take out a rawhead, but he’s plenty old enough to make his own dinner and get himself out of bed and to school and to head off any suspicious questions from all the “concerned” adults at school about his homelife. It makes no sense to him and he tells Dean and Dad that loudly and often.
It’s not that he needs his Dad and Dean there twenty-four-seven to take care of him. Of course he doesn’t. It’s just that he hates being alone, he hates being left out. He hates waiting. He hates the thought of Dean being in danger somewhere that Sam can’t get to him.
He’s sitting on the kitchen counter, watching Dean bustle back and forth, shoving things in his bag and sidestepping Sam’s swinging feet each pass. Sam knows he should help, shouldn’t be such a pain in the ass, but he’s starting to feel it: that nauseating worry settling low in his stomach, the one he gets whenever Dean leaves for a destination unknown to Sam.
He watches Dean carefully pack up the four sandwiches Sam had made him and Dad--sliced turkey and swiss on cheap white bread, lots of mustard and tomatoes and even cut in half, all of them--watches his eyes dart around, going through his mental checklist to make sure he hasn’t forgotten anything. They both jump a little when they hear the car horn blast from the driveway.
Sam starts breathing a little faster, has to grip the edge of the formica counter to keep from reaching out to grab his brother.
“Dean, what if I need you here?” He knows it’s a low-blow, that it’s vastly unfair to Dean but he uses it. “What if something happens?”
It’s that one, that open-ended question that makes Dean’s hackles rise, makes him turn to face Sam with a pained expression that Sam recognizes as unique to Dean: guilt, fear, resentment, and grasping love.
“Sammy, don’t. Don’t say shit like that. Nothing’s gonna happen to you. We’re in Buttfuck, Indiana. Me’n’Dad are running towards the bad thing. All you gotta do is stay here’n make sure you don’t catch yourself on fire or something.” His carefree grin is back, a mask, and he wears it until he walks away from Sam again.
“No, I mean.” Sam hops down off the counter to follow him but he stops, his feet too heavy to bring him to Dean. He just stares at his back as Dean tugs on his jacket, strong back muscles disappearing under worn leather. His chest aches. “What if something happens to you?”
Dean turns to face him and there’s fear again but now there’s a healthy dose of irreverence because. Well, so what if something happens to him? As long as Sam’s okay, right?
“Don’t, Dean. Don’t. Don’t say something stupid or I’ll punch you, I swear to god.” Sam fists the sleeves of his own flannel shirt, angry tears burning in his eyes. He grits his teeth and meets his brother’s eyes, feeling the challenge here between them.
“Sammy, what the fuck are you talking about? Are you PMSing or something? I wasn’t going to say anything. Stop being so clingy.” And there’s Dean’s low-blow. He doesn’t mean it and regrets it the second he says it, but it gets the job done. He only has to glance over at Sam to see that he’s hurt, that he feels stupid and alone in his emotions. Dean has made him feel alone. He bites so hard into the soft flesh inside his cheek that he draws blood. He makes sure Sam see him roll his eyes as he hefts his duffel onto his shoulder. “We’ll be back tonight. It’s just outside of town. Money for food on the counter. Just fucking enjoy a Saturday off, man. God knows I would.”
The last bit is under his breath and he spares another look at Sam, hoping to meet his eyes so that Sam could know that it’s just a front, all of it. He wants nothing more than to stay here with his little brother, than to play video games on the Nintendo that Dean got them back in Nevada last month, than to eat pizza or lo mein and wrestle around on the ground until they’re too sweaty and then settle in to watch Baywatch reruns. Something. Anything. Nothing felt right unless Sam was there.
He walks out the front door anyway, letting the creaky screen door smack back against the frame and he keeps his eyes straight ahead as he takes the steps in twos to the car where Dad’s already waiting. The clouds roll fast overhead as they peel out.
--
Sam hates playing video games alone and so he cleans the kitchen for lack of anything else to do, and also because it gives him a bit of focus in something that doesn’t involve weapons. He scrubs the counters until they smell clean and lemony and look shiny and he feels stupidly proud, like Dean’s gonna come home and see how clean it all looks and give Sam a smile like it matters, like Sam’s good at making places a home. Ugh.
He jerks off next, in the bathroom with the door open just ‘cause he can. He moans and carries on and makes all the noise he wants, half just to hear what he’d sound like during sex and half in the delicious fear of being heard. He comes into his cupped palm and lifts it to his face as he pants, his dick twitching and spent. He squints at the little mostly clear puddle in his hand and thinks about tasting it, about drinking it all down like the girls in porn but he gets too grossed out at the last minute, on the edges of a sex haze where it’s suddenly not hot anymore and is just gross, slimy.
He washes his hands in the sink with extra soap and falls into Dean’s bed naked. Just ‘cause he can. He falls asleep with his face pressed into the pillow and doesn’t dream.
When he wakes up, the sun is setting and he’s starving. He pockets the money Dad left and eats bologna and crackers and drinks the last bit of Dean’s orange Sunkist in the fridge. He gets out the book he hasn’t started from the summer reading list and pulls out a notebook to take notes in. He opens the book and settles back on the couch, glancing at his watch. 8:34pm.
It’s going to be a long night.
At ten-thirty, the sky opens up, rain pouring in from all angles, it seems, making it impossible to see outside. Sam sits at the window and rips into his fingernails with his teeth.
At midnight, he moves his vigil outside. He buttons his flannel and brings his book out but doesn’t turn on the porch light so he can see it. He just watches the road, the dark street out here on the edges of Winchester and listens to the highway sounds very nearby. He sucks on his now raw fingertips and indulgently lets every single bad thing that could happen play through his mind, lets every horrible result run full and unbidden because he likes to hurt himself in these moments, when Dean could be going through so much worse.
By 12:45, he’s panicking. They’d left at two o’clock, when the sun was still high overhead. The sun is history and the moon is hiding behind rainclouds and it’s still pouring out with no signs of letting up. He hasn’t seen or heard a car in half an hour. He moves to the steps, lets himself get wet on the tips of his Converse and his knees where they’re poking out from the awning. He keeps his hands balled into fists in his pockets so they don’t shake.
At 1:13, he hears the Impala. Distant and nearly impossible to make out in the rain but Sam hears it. Would hear it in a goddamn tornado. He forgets every single bit of pride and shoots to his feet when he sees the headlights making their way toward him. He rushes to the car, a relieved grin bursting onto his face as he dashes to the passenger’s side, unable to see inside but he waits for Dean to get out.
Dad’s door opens first and Sam looks up at him immediately, terrified by the grim set of his mouth, the hard line of his jaw. Sam’s heart leaps into his mouth.
“...Dad?”
His dad barely spares him a glance, just slams the car door and starts toward the house. Sam looks back down and he swears he feels his heart stop when he realizes that the passenger seat is empty.
“Dad!” Sam dashes at his father, grabbing hard at the arm of his jacket, his voice reaching embarrassingly high pitches. “Dad, where’s.” His stomach lurches and he suddenly can’t breathe. “Where’s Dean?”
“Decided to be a damn smartass on the way back, so I made him get out. Made him walk home.” The words are passionless, said through gritted teeth, and they’re so dismissive that it makes Sam fall back from his father, makes him gasp.
“He’s out there? In this? You made him walk in this?”
“It’s just rain, Sam. Ain’t gonna kill him. Give him time to cool off and think about treating his father with a little more respect.” Dad’s up the steps now, screen door open, one foot inside the warmly lit house. “Get in here, Sammy. You’ll catch a cold.”
It’s a throwaway comment, something Dad says all the time. But it’s the stark, naked difference in how he treats the two of them, the almost cruel dismissal of Dean that makes Sam run. He just takes off, down the driveway and hard down the street. The highway is just two streets up and then it’s easy, a straight-shot. He can hear his father’s voice but it’s drowning in the rain and Sam likes the sound of that.
There’s hardly anyone driving on Highway 32 this time of night, and so Sam’s alone in his journey. He’s a good runner and he makes use of it now, soaked-through shoes meeting the soft earth, slick and muddy from the sudden onslaught. He’s completely drenched in rain but he doesn’t notice, doesn’t pay any attention. He keeps his eyes straight ahead, looking for a lone figure heading toward him, looking for the set of Dean’s shoulders and his wide walk and his jacket, his beautiful fucking jacket that Sam loves so much it physically hurts sometimes.
He feels like he’s been running for hours but he’s realistic, he’s watched mile markers and he knows it’s not true. What if Dean had been hurt? Not badly, not in any way that their Dad would have immediately seen, but. What if he was bleeding? What if he fell? The side of this road falls away sometimes to treacherous slides of land, down into woods. What if a car had swerved off the road and hit him? What if he hitched a ride from someone and he’s already home? What if he just left? What if he’s finally had enough of Dad’s disregard for him and Sam’s clinginess and he just left? Just left town. What if the last thing ever said between them was an argument? What if Dean never knew.
Sam stops where he is, a stray car rushing by and he leans over and vomits in the grass, splattering his shoes but the rain washes it away almost immediately. He coughs, blinks, stares down at the mess he made. He has to find Dean. He has to.
Every step he takes makes him more frantic, more desperate for his brother. He has to find him. What if he never gets to see Dean again? What if he never hears his voice, what if he never feels Dean wrap his arm around him in the backseat as they tear down the spine of America, Dad awake and always silent behind the wheel? What if he never sees Sam grow into the man he so desperately wants to be for Dean? What if Dean is never proud of Sam, really, truly proud? What if he never gets the chance to show Dean what he can be?
It’s faint at first, but he sees something moving through the sheets of rain. He stops where he is and just stares, squints and tries to make Dean appear with his want alone. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. It’s then and only then that he realizes that he’s been crying this whole time. His voice is shot when it finally makes it out of his throat. “Dean!”
The moving shadow stops and Sam gasps, takes off like a shot, digging his foot in to give himself a good start. He slips right there, falls half in the road and half in the grass, mud splattering up into his face. He forces himself up, driven by the thought of Dean alone and takes off at a run again, his entire front covered in gravel and mud and grass but he can see him now, see his hair dark and matted to his head, see his jacket, the jacket. Sees his beautiful face and Sam sobs now, nearly collapsing with relief.
“Dean.” The word always carries so much with it, so many different silent words and when he hears Dean’s voice, the returned call of “Sammy?”, Sam runs even faster, so close to him now and he hurts now all through his body, his heart pounding his chest that is so tight, his legs aching from running and from falling and from heartsick worry.
“Sammy, what the fuck!? What--” But Sam is right there now, right here and he throws himself at Dean, his body tiny and light but he’s a force tonight. Dean nearly falls over from the velocity but he catches Sam, buries his face in his soaked hair and wraps his arms around him. Sam tries to climb Dean, sobbing uncontrollably now, keeping his face tucked under his neck, nose just beneath his ear, his favorite place to be. He’s shaking all over, trembling and he whines when he feels Dean lift him up onto his body.
“Dean ohmygod I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, please. Please, I was so scared. Dean, I was so scared.” He can’t stop crying now and he’s a dead weight in Dean’s arms, legs linked at the small of his back, arms wrapped suffocatingly tight around Dean’s neck. He feels Dean’s arms around him, one low and one high to support him and Dean rocks him as best as he can, trying to calm him down, to make him stop crying because it’s killing him.
“Sammy, shh. It’s alright. Hey, kiddo, it’s alright. I’m okay. Shh, Sammy, it’s alright, I’m okay. See? See?” He nudges Sam’s face with his own until Sam lifts up and meets his eyes. And Dean’s telling the truth. He’s got a busted lip and the side of his face is pink and will definitely have a hellacious bruise in the morning but his eyes are bright, so, so bright and shining with tears and exhaustion but not pain. His expression softens when he sees Sam’s face, snotty and covered in mud and clean streaks of tear-tracks, bottom lip worried fat and red. Dean sighs, his hand coming up to the back of Sam’s head and pulling him back down to rest against his shoulder, face tucked into his neck. “It’s okay, little brother. I’m okay. We’re okay. Aren’t we? We’re just fine.”
Sam just nods, sniffling to himself and wiping his face off on Dean’s wet jacket. He has his fingers tangled together at the nape of Dean’s neck and they’re playing absently with the short, watery strands of hair there. He closes his eyes and lets the relief flood through him. Dean’s okay. He’s alive and he’s right here and he’s okay.
Dean sits down on the guardrail right where they’d been standing and Sam stays attached to him, way too big to be acting like this but Dean doesn’t seem to mind and Sam sure as hell isn’t going to stop on his own. Dean’s petting Sam’s hair, not caring that it’s just getting wetter and wetter, that it’s thick and caked with mud in places. He tucks his nose against Sam’s temple and just indulges, just breathes him in, just feels every bit of him solid and alive and alright in his arms. “‘m sorry, Sam. ‘Bout what I said earlier. I didn’t mean it. You know that, right? I didn’t mean it.”
Sam nods again, still not really wanting to talk, to try and give voice to anything warring in his body. He relaxes against Dean, so comfortable here in the pouring rain on the side of the highway in the middle of the night that he could fall asleep right here. He talks only because it will make Dean feel better, because Dean needs his forgiveness.
“I know, Dean. It’s okay. I’m sorry, too.”
Dean opens his mouth to reply but the car driving toward them on the other side of the road makes a sudden U-turn and pulls up right beside them, tires screeching as Dad slams on the breaks. The passenger door opens and his voice sounds far-away from the driver’s side in the rain. “Get in. Now.”
Dean sighs, tense all over again but he pushes it aside, for Sam. He stands up and Sam loosens against him, slides down his body in the dark, hoping Dad hadn’t seen him, seen them. Dean smiles down at him, a small, encouraging thing and swipes a hand through the front of Sam’s hair where it’s plastered against his forehead. “Come on, kid. Let’s go home.”
They tuck back together in the backseat, stripped down to their underwear and under the beach towels Dad had miraculously thought to bring from the house. The apology from Dad is silent like they always are, but Dean can feel it. He strokes Sam’s hair back into place on the way home, his eyes closed and he feels stupidly, inexplicably happy.
next.