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It is, of course, one of the filthiest nights they’ve ever driven through when they pull into the motel forecourt. Its chucking with rain, wind whipping through the trees and lightning crackling almost continually across the sky as Dean guides the car to a stop, the thunder booming around them making it difficult for them to hear each other. “It’s not safe to drive!” Dean had shouted through the din a couple of miles back, and Sam had wordlessly pointed to the road sign stating “motel, 3 miles”. They’d crept along the road, Dean trying to keep the car from skidding, and both breathed a sigh of relief at the flashing ‘vacancies’ sign in the window.
Pulling his coat up over his head, Sam runs after Dean through the parking lot, desperate to make the shelter of the reception. As they crowd in, jostling each other to get through the door first, the night receptionist looks up at them, bored.
“Two queens,” Dean literally spits out, water droplets flying from his hair.
“Only got a king left.” The lack of fucks given by the receptionist is award-winning, Sam thinks, grumpy, as he wrings rain out of his hoodie.
Dean glances at him briefly, eyes shuttered, but, “We’ll take it,” Dean confirms. It’s not like they have a lot of other options.
Reaching the room requires another mad dash through what feels like a month's rain falling in the space of a minute, and Sam is thoroughly soaked through by the time Dean wrestles the door open. His brother is in the same state, and Sam realises how much he’d forgotten about Dean and his lack of shame as Dean shucks his clothes unselfconsciously, leaving them in a pile as he walks towards the bathroom.
“I call first shower,” he says cheerfully, and Sam is too gobsmacked at the sight of his brother’s (glorious) naked ass to fight back.
He’s got his act together by the time Dean’s out of the shower; there’s nothing like being shiveringly cold to kill an erection. As soon as the door opens he speeds past Dean and into the bathroom, desperate to get under the warm water.
He hasn’t really thought through what’s going to happen when he has to come out of the shower. It’s late, and both brothers are exhausted, so he should be less surprised to see Dean already tucked into the big bed. He’s not prepared for it though, and the sight almost makes him drop his towel; luckily he’s able to fumble his fingers closed before it falls and he makes it to the clean underwear in his duffel without incident.
Once he’s got his boxers and a t-shirt on, he turns back to the bed, at a loss for what to do next. There’s no sofa in the room, he’s noted, and relatively little floor space.
“I’ll just, err…” he mumbles, looking around wildly.
“Don’t be a baby, Sam,” Dean says irritably. “Get in the fucking bed, I won’t bite you.”
Sam rolls his eyes instinctively, but he can’t help tensing. Moving forwards, he slides gingerly into the space Dean’s left for him, trying to stay as close to the edge as possible.
Dean snorts. “I don’t got cooties, Sammy. What the hell is wrong with you, we used to do this all the time.”
Sam thinks about that, thinks about why he’d kicked up such a fuss to make it stop. He needed privacy, he’d claimed as a teenager, when the reason was anything but. For a wild moment, he thinks about mentioning Jess, pointing out that he hasn’t shared a bed with anyone else since she’d died. It’s true, but not the reason for his discomfort; and while it would certainly shut Dean up, it would feel disrespectful to her memory.
“Just shut up, Dean,” he says instead. “Lets just go to sleep as quickly as possible, and then it will be morning faster.”
“It’s not fucking Christmas Eve, Sam,” Dean snipes, but he rolls onto his side all the same and flicks out the light. Sam’s left in the grimy motel darkness, neon seeping through the thin curtains and falling across his face.
Dean’s asleep almost instantly, the familiar sound of his soft snores a little closer than usual. Sam can feel heat from Dean’s body seeping through the sheets, making him sweat lightly with the unaccustomed warmth, and Sam can already feel his body reacting again to the achingly comforting smell of his brother.
His eyes are gritty with tiredness, but he knows he’s not going to get any sleep tonight. It’s going to be a long night.