Chapter Text
There’s a creature in the front seat with Dean.
Skin as pale as the snow clinging to the branches swooping outside the windows and limbs as thin as them too. Mouth like a cupid’s bow, except Cupid wouldn’t be so cruel, so just a bow then, long lines and curves so pink and full that it makes heads turn and eyes stare.
It makes Dean’s head turn and Dean’s eyes stare.
Except he shouldn’t be staring, not at him, this fragile flower wilting in the dusk of winter with a nose tipped in pink and hair that once shone so brightly in the summer sun, now dulled by the grey light of snowy days.
Except he still is.
The heater is busted and the vents are just blasting out air that’s only slightly warmer than the wind outside and everything is miserable. Sam doesn’t let a minute go by without reminding Dean of exactly that.
“You doin’ okay over there, Sammo?”
“I would rather have my left leg ripped off by a black dog and bleed out on the side of the road than sit in this goddamned car for another minute.”
Well that’s that, then.
They have to suffer another thirty two miles with frozen fingers and fogging breath before Dean carves a wide curve in the fresh snow in front of a hidden driveway that leads to the cabin that’ll be their new home for the next two weeks.
Pristine, Pastor Jim had claimed, a cabin fit for kings, out of the way and stocked to the teeth with anything you’d need. Dean hopes the fuck so, because he’s going to be the one catching an earful of Sam’s bitching if they have to chop their own firewood after five and a half hours of driving in below zero with no heat and bones so cold they might shatter with their next deep breath.
Turns out Pastor Jim wasn’t too far off base when Dean wheels the Impala into the snow-covered gravel just in front of the small cabin and slides to a stop. It looks sturdy enough from the outside, and if that wooden box just on the other side of the wraparound porch isn’t a firewood shed then Dean is the queen of England. God, Dean hopes it’s full.
Sam’s a shit as always, bolting out of the car and up the creaky cabin steps to leave Dean with the bags in the trunk as he scampers around and, dammit Sam, Dean should’ve gone first, it’s their precaution, the way they do things, just because you’re seven feet tall at the age of sixteen doesn’t mean that’s changed, god dammit, but there he goes, so yeah. Dean gets the fucking bags.
“There’s a fireplace.”
“Astute observation, Sammy, it’s almost like you’ve got eyes or somethin’,” Dean quips as he drops their bags once he’s over the threshold of the doorway. The withering look Sam throws his way is almost as dark as the welcome mat Dean stomped his feet on that’s more dirt and snow than ‘Welcome’, so that’s saying something.
“I can’t feel my fingers.”
“Neither can I but I’m still luggin’ your shit in, so why don’t you make yourself useful and get that firewood from the shed out there, huh? Pain in my ass.”
Sam punches Dean’s shoulder on his way past and Dean elbows Sam’s ribs and Sam lets out a coughing laugh that grabs Dean’s heart by the neck and jostles it a little but this is them, Sam and Dean, so whatever. It’s whatever.
The cabin is small but not claustrophobic. Hardwood all throughout, a rug in front of the fireplace in the living room that you walk into right from the outside and a hall to the right where the bedrooms probably are. Kitchen off on the back corner, complete with a stove and fridge that’s unplugged by the looks of it, which is fine since the snow outside will do well enough to keep their supplies cold if they need it. Not much for decorations, no pictures anywhere, just blank wood and peeling wallpaper, and isn’t that just like home.
Not that Dean would know since the only home he had was set on fire with darkness and flames, ashes to the wind.
Not that Dean would know since the only home he knows now is walking on its own two feet, kicking snow free from its boots on the doorframe before coming inside and saying, “There’s, like, two pieces in the shed, Dean. If I have to chop wood, I swear I’m gonna put the Impala in neutral and just let it run over me on the way back down the hill.”
This fucking kid.
“Well, did you bring the two pieces in?”
“Whaddya think I am, an idiot?”
“Your track record is less than stellar on that front, Sammy, do you really have to ask?”
“Oh my god, I fucking hate you.”
Dean knows he doesn’t.
“Make the beds, find some blankets, and start a fire with your two lousy pieces of wood while I find the axe, think you can manage that?”
“Honestly, you’re just being a dick now, Dean.”
“You act like you’re surprised, Sammy.”
“I really shouldn’t be at this point.”
Dean’s heart doesn’t need to be this warm, but it is, lighting him up like the fourth of July from the inside out as Sam toes his boots off and goes to toss the two pieces of firewood into the fireplace before coming back to grab their bags off the floor. Obviously, he has to stomp down the hall to make his point, okay, Drama Queen, you’re miserable, we get it, take a bow.
Dean wouldn’t want to be miserable with anyone else.
Finding the axe is a bigger pain in the ass than Dean’s little brother, which is saying something, but yeah, the little fucker was buried under a foot and a half of snow and the only reason Dean found it was by tripping over the stump of a tree that was also buried under a foot and a half of snow, so yeah, fuck Wisconsin, he wants out.
Except when Dean turns back to look at the house after brushing the snow off the axe with the sleeve of his coat, he can see Sam at the kitchen window, hands pressed to the glass by his face as he blows against the window and puffs his cheeks out like a frog while crossing his eyes.
“I hope you get stuck there!” Dean calls out, breaking into a fit of laughter when Sam panics and pulls back from the glass with a look of alarm. Too easy.
The lift-swing-thump’ing rhythm of chopping wood would almost be cathartic if it wasn’t for the fact that every single bone in Dean’s body is aching and all he can think about is fire and warmth and Sammy, so his swings are a little off and sometimes he has to stop to do a jig and breathe on his hands because they’re seizing in the cold, and this just kind of really fucking sucks.
But then there’s a crunch-crunch-crunch behind him and a pair of hands bigger than his own—when did that happen?—wrapping around his fingers and a voice he knows better than the skin across his knuckles saying, “Go inside and get warm, lumberjack,” so maybe it kind of really fucking sucks just a little bit less.
He makes Sam promise to just do another log or two, he’s chopped enough, they should be fine, but Sam waves him off and Dean’s lost feeling in his toes and his fingertips ages ago, so he gives up on trying to argue.
Shuffling inside with an armful of wood after tossing the rest of the pieces in the shed outside for later, Dean dumps the logs by the pitifully crackling fire in the living room and starts sorting out which pieces are driest to add to the flames. Only problem is that he literally can’t feel anything with his hands. It’s like a phantom touch brushing over his nerves and nothing’s really registering, and he hates this, hates feeling weak, so he cusses under his breath and hovers trembling fingers near the feeble flames and hopes like hell that he doesn’t have frostbite.
Doesn’t know how long he sits there, just notices when the door creaks open and two boots drop quietly to the floor and a body settles in beside him with more wood that topples onto the pile Dean brought in. A strangely matron-like tutting fills his ears as Sam shakes his head, zipping open his coat before reaching forward to tuck Dean’s hands under his armpits, letting out a sharp whistle when cold skin meets human space heater. Dean sucks in a breath too, his brain struggling to catch up.
“Body heat, Dean, survival 101, ever heard of it?”
Dean’s forgotten how to speak the one language he really knows and can only grunt in response. That makes Sam’s face go all kinds of worried, aw shit, but that also means that Sam reaches behind them to grab a blanket off the couch and that blanket is now cocooned around them, so is it really that bad? Dean doesn’t even know.
They’re both quiet as they de-thaw, the fire gradually growing more robust after Sam throws a few more logs in, the flames bleeding red into the crevices of the wood around them, warm fingers of fire skimming up the walls until the heat is almost suffocating.
Dean’s finally regained feeling in his hands, which is good because the air between him and Sam has become so thick that he could probably lean forward and take a bite out of it, so he uses this opportunity to launch a surprise tickle attack down Sam’s ribs. It seemed like a good idea at first but ouch, dammit, forgot the kid uses his legs when he flails, so yeah, that was short lived, but at least Sam is smiling again and snorting out something close to a laugh, so Dean counts it as a win. Every smile of Sam’s is a win.
Blanket is off now, too hot to keep it over them both, so after calling a truce, they fold it up and use it as padding under their ankles when they both prop their feet up on the stone ledge in front of the hearth. Laying down on their backs and staring up at the ceiling, just breathing together and listening to the crackle and pop of the fire fill the cabin.
“How long?”
There’s pain in Sam’s voice. Pain and anger.
Dean closes his eyes and counts to three.
“Dean?”
“I dunno, Sammy.”
“It’s mid-winter in the Middle of Nowhere, Wisconsin and it’s 15 below zero and we don’t know when our dad’s gonna come save us?”
Dean starts from zero and counts to ten.
“You’re lookin’ for a fight that I’m not willing to give, Sammy. I don’t fucking know.”
Tense shoulder pressed against his own, one long line of muscle that is tight with anger and defiance and the will to push and push and push. Dean lost that will long ago but he loves Sam for it and hates Sam for it and wishes that everything could just make sense. But sometimes, most times, their lives just don’t make sense, and that’s all that Dean can give. He doesn’t fucking know.
Then that shoulder and the body it’s attached to that’s pressed against Dean’s side untenses, like all the energy has been sucked out of him with a straw. He opens his eyes and turns his head, cheek pressed to the rug beneath him as he meets Sam’s gaze.
Swirls of green hedging into hazel stare right back at him, ever-changing in the light, framed by eyelashes as thick as the woods outside that are shielding them from dangers unknown. A color Dean could drown in, one he can never quite describe, but whenever someone’s asked him his favorite color, Sam’s eyes are what comes to mind, and isn’t that a little fucked up?
“Okay,” Sam says, and he means it. Dean feels his own muscles relax, hadn’t even realized that he’d matched Sam’s tension in the first place.
“Okay,” Dean says, and he means it too.
Sometimes, things do make sense. But only when Sam’s around.
“We got any of those beans left?”
There it is, classic Sam, only thinking with his stomach since he started to shoot up like a weed, but yeah, they have some beans so they’re gonna eat some fucking beans. So Dean sighs and bitches and moans and flops over top of Sam like good big brothers do, and Sam whines and huffs and puffs like good little brothers do before shoving Dean off and then helping him up, and finally, things seem sort of okay.
They’re warm, warmer than they were, anyway, and they’ve shed their jackets and found a pot and found some beans and the stove works, thank fuck, so they’re gonna be okay.
Sam is smiling and slamming drawers open and closed until he finds a wooden spoon and brandishes it like he’s King Arthur and the spoon is Excalibur and, God, his little brother is a nerd, but they’re gonna be okay.
“Beans, beans, good for your heart, the more you eat ‘em, the more you fart, the more you fart, the better you feel, so eat your beans with every meal!”
“Sometimes, before I go to sleep at night, I ask God why he stuck me with you as a brother, Dean.”
“Oh, yeah? He ever get back to you on that?”
“Status is pending. I’ll get you a written report by Tuesday at the latest.”
Sam makes Dean’s ribs hurt from laughing so hard and he knows he shouldn’t encourage it but sometimes the kid just gets to him, especially when they’re in close quarters and the cabin is too warm and Sam is smiling, so whatever. Whatever.
The bowls they ladle the beans into are chipped and cold and the spoons have plastic handles that look like they’re twice as old as Dad, but they’ll do. Sam had the brilliant idea of cutting up some leftover Slim Jims into the beans and heating it all up together and Dean had said something like, “This is the only reason I keep you around, y’know that?” and Sam had said something like, “Shut up, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if I wasn’t here,” and Dean hadn’t said anything back to that because, yeah, that’s just it, isn’t it?
But they’re eating their beans and Slim Jims, or ‘Sleam Beans’ as Sam has dubbed it, and Dean had looked at him like he had three heads when he first said it, but now it’s so funny that they keep repeating it in weird voices and breaking into giggles with their shoulders bumping, so he guesses he doesn’t really mind it anymore. Weird how that works.
The only sound filling the cabin now besides the crackle of the fire is the scrape of metal spoons curving around the edges of their bowls, gathering every last morsel they can from the beat up china until the dishes are cleaner than they were in the first place. Kitchen clean up follows after a good deal of cupboard scavenging produces a sponge and some dish soap. Sam takes the lead on that, telling Dean to go get some cards or somethin’, so Dean trudges off down the hall, feeling just a little bit colder when his little brother leaves his line of sight.
He was right in his earlier prediction that this hallway leads to the bedrooms of the cabin. First door he comes across is the bathroom on his right with a mirror that has a giant spiderweb crack in the upper corner and a showerhead that probably won’t work for shit. Sam’s toothbrush is already on the side of the sink, crumpled toothpaste tube just a few inches away.
At the very end of the hall are two doors, one on each side, each with metal bed frame and lumpy mattress inside of their respective rooms, otherwise barren and uninviting. Dean’s duffel sits at the side of the bed in the room to his left, Sam’s duffel sits at the end of the bed in the room to his right. Both beds are made up like Dean had asked, at least two layers of blankets on each mattress.
Dean’s bed looks a little bigger from where he’s standing, maybe a double or a queen at most, whereas the bed in Sam’s room is probably a twin. They both have metal headboards and footboards, which will no doubt lead to aching calves and hips in the morning since neither of them are short by any means, but if anything, Sam should be in the bigger one. He’s taller than Dean now—shit, that’s annoying—but it’s the truth, so Dean takes it upon himself to switch their bags and claim the room with the smaller bed as his own before opening up his duffel to find some cards. He pulls out an extra sweater while he’s at it and yanks it on, then grabs a second one out of his bag since he’s there anyway, and then heads back to the living room.
Sam’s still in the kitchen, drying the pot with a tea towel with his back to Dean, so he has the element of surprise when he wrestles his extra sweater over Sam’s head, momentarily blinding and probably suffocating the kid, but the end result is the positive thing here, so Sam’ll be fine, probably.
Sam makes a lot of noises, throwing the pot onto the counter as he grapples with Dean’s arms to try and pull the material past his face until he finally pops through the neck hole and heaves in a huge gasp of air as he glares at Dean.
“You’re so dramatic, Sammy, yeesh.”
“I could have died.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Sam scowls and wiggles his arms through the holes of Dean’s sweater, which was once Dad’s sweater, so it sits a little big on his frame and hangs past his wrists, this dark green and brown knit sweater that used to be too itchy but wore soft with time and has many a laundromat dryer under its belt. It looks good on him, even with his hair sticking out in every direction like he’s been electrocuted, and Dean can’t help but reach up to rub his palms over the strands until it lies somewhat flat again.
“You need a haircut.”
“What I need is to be in Florida right now on a white sandy beach in ninety degree weather.”
“What you need is to sit down and get ready to have your ass whooped in gin rummy.”
“Oh, you’re on.”
Turns out Sam’s gotten a lot better at gin rummy than the last time they played, which is illegal, probably, so when Sam wins for the sixth time in a row, Dean just puts what’s left of his hand down on the floor and hooks his arm around Sam’s neck to drag him down into a tussle that’ll prove who the real winner is.
“Ow, gerroff, Dean!” Sam’s cry is muffled by his mouth currently occupying the space between Dean’s armpit and the top of his ribcage, so he takes this opportunity to grind a forceful noogie into the top of Sam’s floppy-haired head. “Yer suf a sore loser!”
“Sorry, Sammy, can’t hear you from down there, what was that?” Dean says, but then he gets an elbow to the gut and the tables are turning, dammit, now Dean’s got his face in Sam’s collarbone with Sam’s twiggy arm around his neck and he wasn’t prepared for this.
Tickling is last resort but this situation deems itself worthy of such reinforcements, so Dean skitters his fingers up and down Sam’s ribs until he’s squirming and shrieking and trying to push Dean away instead of yank him closer, legs thrashing and breath catching in his throat between gasps of laughter and air.
Dean’s little brother is some kind of beautiful.
It’s that thought that arrests what little oxygen is left in Dean’s lungs and collapses the paper card house of his chest in a single blow. He just freezes, stops and stares at Sam’s face scrunching up with a flush to his cheeks and hair that’s so long it nearly covers his eyes, and he feels like he’s in limbo. His heart is caught in purgatory, this empty space with no up and no down and nowhere to go but right where he is, doomed to linger in this unspeakable place in his soul.
Sam’s blinking up at him now, confusion twisting his mouth as he realizes that Dean stopped his onslaught and is spacing out, Christ, get your shit together, Dean, you’re too transparent now.
Forcing a big grin on his face, Dean sits back with a huff and waves his hand around, trying for blasé but probably failing. “I give up, man. You’ve got octopus arms now. I don’t stand a chance.”
Sam has a tiny frown on his face and Dean hates it, hates that he put that there, so he grabs a pillow from the couch and lunges forward to try and smother his kid brother’s face. Another minute of wrestling and Sam’s hands batting Dean’s arms and threats muffled by down feathers in a fifty year old pillowcase passes before Dean finally rolls out of reach, another smile hooking into the corners of his lips as he moves out of the retaliation zone.
“That was a cheap move, Dean,” Sam cough-laughs as he sits up, and if Sammy thinks that Dean was lying and waving a white flag as a diversion while planning a second attack, then who is Dean to say any different?
“Yeah, yeah, cry me a river.”
It’s late afternoon, the sun outside curving down toward the horizon in a lazy descent, turning the cabin a little bit grey. After calling a second truce, the two of them find themselves exploring their new home, trying to figure out just what exactly Pastor Jim meant by it being “armed to the teeth”. When they pull open the hall closet and see five shelves stacked with close to a hundred jars of holy water and two trunks right below filled with crosses, rosaries, pre-made rock salt casings for shotguns, and silver bullets to match, they think they understand.
Out of habit, they pull out some supplies of the stash and get themselves prepared. Dean’s the one who sheepishly lays the line of salt down by the front door. He’d been too distracted by the cold and taking care of Sam, his frozen brain too fogged from defrosting to remember that he should have done this right when they came in.
Sam doesn’t say anything but apparently, he can tell what Dean is thinking—practically psychic, this kid—because when he passes by to tuck a bottle of holy water in the bathroom, his fingers brush across the middle of Dean’s back, a reassuring touch. It doesn’t do anything except make Dean’s world stop and start to spin the wrong way.
They move like a well-oiled machine, salt lining the window sills and holy water stashed within ten feet of any point in the entire cabin by the time they’re done. Shotguns get loaded with rock salt and tucked under their beds, rosaries shoved into pockets, and by the end of it, both of them are standing with their hands on their hips, surveying their surroundings with an oddly proud air about them.
“Ya done good, kid,” Dean says as he reaches up, damn his kid is tall, to ruffle his fingers through Sam’s mop of hair.
Sam swats at him, but not too hard, which means he doesn’t really want Dean to stop even if he is groaning out, “Shut up, Dean, you’re so annoying.”
They know the way they work.
Dean pulls his hand free from Sam’s hair and immediately feels restless.
“Gonna clean my guns,” he grunts, shuffling back to his room for his bag and leaving Sam standing alone in the living room. He tries to shake the feeling that’s slowly creeping up his back, the cold one with icicles for fingertips and dread at its palm, but for whatever reason, he can’t.
Clenching his jaw, Dean makes quick work of gathering up his guns and his kit before moving back into the living room to set up shop at the coffee table in front of the couch. Sam’s already there, nestling into the pillows by the arm with the blanket from earlier pulled over his feet and a book in his lap. He stares at Dean with wide eyes, not saying a word as Dean slowly takes a seat next to him, but watching his every move as he tugs the table closer and sets everything down into place.
Dean figures Sam’ll get to reading; it’s not like this is something he’s never seen before. So he focuses on the movement of his fingers, on the feel of the cool metal under his hands as he strips his pistol down, the routine so familiar that he could do it with his eyes closed. The smell of solvent bites the inside of his nose when he opens the bottle and gets his patch and rod ready to clean the barrel. Bore brush follows that, scrubbing and alternating with the patch and rod until it’s time for the gun oil. One of his favorite smells in the world, oddly enough. Reminds him of home.
That’s when Dean sneaks a glance over at Sam, and wouldn’t you know, he’s looking right back at Dean. Or at Dean’s hands rather, which have slowed their movements now that he’s not paying attention to the cleaning process and is instead fixated on his little brother, and that’s his giveaway. Sam’s gaze now flicks up to meet Dean’s stare, and their eye contact holds in the following minute of silence before Sam looks intently back down at Dean’s fingers. As if waiting for Dean to finish.
So Dean sucks in a measured breath through his nose, turns back to the stripped gun in front of him and finishes up with a slight tremble to his fingers. Putting it all back together is rote memory, the snap-click-slide of all the pieces fitting back into one of Dean’s most trusted weapons is like music to his ears. Scrubbing a cloth over it with care when it’s all said and done, he inspects it one last time before setting it aside and starting on the next one.
It’s when he’s fitting the slide back on the second pistol that he hears Sam say, “You were slower that time.”
Turning his head, Dean sees Sam staring at the watch that’s too big on his bony wrist. There’s a weird tension between them now, this suffocating, invisible wall that has planted itself on the five inch space that separates their bodies on the couch. He knows Sam can feel it too, can hear the odd inflection in Sam’s tone and how his nonchalant comment was far more obvious than he’d probably intended it to be.
The thing is, Sam knows that he knows, and Dean knows that Sam knows that he knows, and Dean’s head is hurting now and he doesn’t really know where things went sideways but he feels like a turtle on its back, legs flailing uselessly and nothing to get him back on his feet.
But it’s Dean’s job to stop it, to fix it and smooth the tension and the hairs on their arms that are standing too high and raising goosebumps because of the electricity between them, the same electricity that Dean can taste on his tongue like a burn, so he goes along with it.
“Yeah? You been timing me?”
Their eyes meet and hold once more. The burn aches.
“Gotta keep you from getting rusty, y’know?” Sam says, and there’s a hint of a smile on his lips now, so Dean makes a noise like he’s offended and grabs the next handgun at his side.
“I’ll show you rusty.”
“Go.”
Dean’s fingers fly over the metal, gripping and pull-push-slide, fingers into crevices and popping out the spring, his heart somehow beating more slow and steady this time around than before. It’s probably one of the fastest cleaning jobs he’s done, everything coming back together again, snick-slick-click, down on the table, and hands up like he’s surrendering as Sam calls time.
Looking over at his little brother, Dean watches Sammy’s eyebrows hike up and disappear beneath his bangs as he registers the time, and when he looks back up at Dean again, a flower of warmth blossoms in his chest at the impressed smile on Sam’s face.
“Okay,” he concedes. “Maybe you’re not so rusty.”
Dean grins so big that it hurts his cheeks and Sam looks startled for a moment, eyes widening a fraction before he ducks his head until his hair covers his face and he starts mumbling about overconfident brothers and egos larger than the coast of California as he flips his book open to the last page he marked with an old Kleenex.
He tries not to linger on that, so Dean grabs the next handgun and repeats his method a little slower this time, not trying for a record now that Sam’s attention is no longer on him. Once he finishes up, he wipes his hands on the cloth, forgetting that it’s so coated in gun oil that it does nothing but smear more oil across his palms.
Making a face, Dean tosses the cloth back on the table, darts a glance at Sam—who’s still reading like a nerd—then reaches over and plants his thumb square in the middle of his brother’s forehead before dragging it down right between his eyebrows. The smear is dirty against Sam’s winter-pale skin, and the look of outrage on his face grows by the second as his eyes widen and his mouth opens in protest. Dean gets there first.
“Siiimbaaaa,” Dean intones deeply, mimicking Rafiki’s voice as he lifts his thumb from Sam’s skin after his mock-Christening.
It’s so unexpected, so completely out of left field for them, that they both just sit there for a second while trying to register what Dean just did right before the laughter rolls through them like a tidal wave.
Dean has a stitch in his side and is gasping and grabbing at the ribs on the left side of his body while Sam covers his mouth with both hands and tries to muffle his whoops. There are tears in both of their eyes and streaming down their cheeks and Sam’s shoulder knocking against Dean’s as they lean into one another, and then their temples are pressing together and each of their giggles shakes the other’s body as they find themselves connecting once more.
The room smells like gun oil and smoke and burnt newspaper and leftover Sleam Beans and Sam. It smells like a blessing and a warning all in one. And that’s what catches on Dean’s skin, hooks right in deep and reels him back and away from the one body he wishes he could climb into but knows he never could, never can, never should.
He’s on his feet before he even realizes what he’s doing and Sam’s laughter is tapering off into shorter chuckles before dying off completely, and all Dean can think of is that he’s ruining it again, too obvious, too stupid for letting it get that far, for even doing it in the first place.
“That shit’s gonna give you brain cancer or somethin’ if we don’t get it off of you soon,” Dean says, praying that Sam will take this as his excuse, and wanders off to find a washcloth with soap and water. He finds one and goes to the sink and suds the fuck out of it before tossing it to Sam from across the room.
Sam catches it mid-air and gets splattered with water because Dean didn’t wring it out enough. Oops. He’s shaking his head as he lifts his bangs and starts scrubbing between his brows at the streak Dean left behind.
“Thanks for the shower, dude.”
“Yeah, whatever, Sammy.”
“Can’t believe you can wring a banshee’s neck until she croaks but you don’t know how to wring out a washcloth.”
“Uh, harsh?”
“I’m soaking here, dude, fuck you.”
Yeah, okay, fair.
A minute later, the sopping wet washcloth is sailing back towards Dean and he’s the one getting showered with water, so okay, he’ll wring it out more next time, lesson learned.
The silence coating the room has shifted from strained to palatable, no longer encouraging the odd feeling that lingers at the back of Dean’s neck. Or so he thought. He cleans up his kit and puts his guns away back in his bag before going to wash his hands until the water runs clear in the bathroom sink.
After scrubbing at a particular smudge on the back of his knuckles for a minute, Dean lifts his head and catches his eyes in the mirror. He freezes. The water is slowly turning from ice cold to kinda cold to lukewarm but he barely notices because, goddamn it. Shit and fuck.
He’s stared into more mirrors than he can count. Sometimes to make sure his hair is still spiking up the way he likes it, sometimes just to piss Sammy off. But this time, it isn’t out of vanity or even for show. The reason that Dean can’t look away now is enough to break his heart.
Longing. There’s a longing, a carnal want and need, a craving so deep and dark and twisted that it’s like vines curled into the very base of his soul. And it’s pouring out of him. He feels like it's seeping out of his pores, like he can feel it turning his irises into a green closer to jealousy than anything else he’s ever known.
It’s a sickness, bred in long nights with arms curled around his ribs and the feeling of soft breaths against his neck and hair that’s always been too long tickling his nose.
It’s a disease, seeping through his veins and turning them black under his skin, tainted with emotions too dark to ever name.
It’s who he is, a part of him so integral into his daily functioning that it would be like pulling his lungs out of his throat if anyone ever tried to get it out.
It’s fucking terrifying.
Dean cranks the faucet knobs off so hard that the metal protests under his palms and he has to back away from the sink before he breaks them off completely. His hands are dripping wet at his sides, droplets of water slipping down to dangle from his fingertips before thumping to the tile beneath his feet.
He needs a fucking drink.
Shuffling out of the bathroom, Dean presses a hand against the wall to his right as he slowly makes his way to the kitchen, using it to keep himself upright. It’s like all the strength has evacuated his body, leaving him for dead like a pile of bones destined to rot away.
Seeing Sam—Sam, who manages to look so small under a blanket with a book in his lap and his cheek propped against his fist with his bangs flopping in his eyes; Sam, who raises his head right away and gets this special Dean-smile on his face when their gazes meet; Sam, who never fails to wrap his fist around Dean’s heart and squeeze until the marrow of his very bones ache—is the final straw.
“Think we need some supplies.” Dean doesn’t even know what he’s saying, just is registering that his mouth is moving and words are leaving his tongue. “I’m gonna head into town and stock up.”
Sam’s Dean-smile falters, replaced now with a small frown. “I thought we were good on provisions. And the roads—”
“I’ll be fine. Rather get what we’re low on and have it in case another storm rolls in instead of being shit out of luck.”
“Right,” Sam deadpans. He’s falling in line with Dean’s tone, this flat, monotone thing that doesn’t suit him. He’s too pale in the winter. “Be prepared and all that. Sure.”
“I’ll be back in an hour at most.” The keys are suddenly in Dean’s hand, the ridges of the metal teeth gnawing into the skin of his palm. “Hold down the fort, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Dean hears from behind him. He feels like he’s in one of those old films, each of his movements a slide clicking by in the projector, all flashing up on the screen one after the other. Boots, on. Jacket, over his shoulders. Hand, turning the knob. Brother, staring at his back. “Whatever.”
Brother, being left behind.
Dean shouldn’t go. He knows that. He knows it with every single step he takes out of the cabin and down the front steps and through the snow that’s drifting up against the side of his car. He knows it when he puts his keys in the ignition. He knows it when he stares at the front door, closed now, and can feel Sam’s eyes staring right back through the wood.
The thing is, he has to. Needs to breathe, to get some space between him and the one thing he loves most because that’s just it, isn’t it? He loves Sam toomuch, too big, too all-consumed by the way the light catches his irises and makes them look like sea glass when there are no clouds in the sky. This thing inside of him is a monster, one with an enormous mouth yawning open in the pit of Dean’s gut, wanting to swallow Sam whole. Dean would rather die than give it the chance.
And when it gets to be too much, like right now, like right this very second with Dean’s fingers trembling uncontrollably and his breath sitting too tight in his chest, he needs to leave. To get away from Sam for just a moment, a minute, an hour. To remind himself, with his knuckles white on the steering wheel and the passenger seat an empty hole beside him, who he really is. A big brother. A protector. A guardian.
So sometimes, on the really bad days, it takes more than a minute, or an hour. Some days, it takes a couple hours.
Today, it takes four.
Part of that isn’t his fault. He picked up more essentials; gasoline, matches, candles, canned food, extra blankets, two bottles of cheap whiskey. He was ready to go home. But there’s only one road leading into and out of the small town that’s already nearly a half hour drive from their cabin, and of course, today would be the day that an eighteen wheeler decides to take the one goddamn turn a little too fast and jack-knife itself across the goddamn street and block all traffic headed west.
Sam is west. Sam is alone. Sam is also in a cabin without a phone, too far from any neighbours or other forms of civilization to get help if he needed it.
So, yeah. Sue Dean for nearly losing his goddamn mind.
It’s two hours before the tow truck from a nearby town manages to arrive, and another half hour for enough townspeople to gather to help push the truck off the road to let traffic through. The moment the road west is clear, Dean is in the Impala and tearing down the street like a bat out of hell. Nearly kills himself three different times speeding through the snow-covered road, slipping and fishtailing like a madman.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.
Dean curses himself, curses the monster within, curses every emotion that ever dared breach the wall in his chest, because it’s their fault. His fault. For allowing them to better him, for allowing them to drive him away from Sam when he should have swallowed all of the poisonous thoughts like a cyanide pill, just grin and bear it and be there, be with him, don’t leave him alone, Christ.
One job. He has one job.
The shirt beneath Dean’s winter coat is soaked in sweat, the material sticking to his skin like a bandage tacky with blood. He hasn’t had feeling in his hands in who knows how long. He can’t remember the last time he blinked. All that matters is that road, that turn off that curves up into the woods and leads back to his little brother, to his kid, to the only reason Dean’s still alive and breathing today.
The moment Dean sees the driveway, he lets out an audible noise, something one would hear leaving the lungs of a dying man.
Up the driveway, careening around the last old oak tree that obscures the cabin from view from down the road, and he’s finally home. The Impala skids into the space out front with the precision of a stuntman driver, except the man behind the wheel is a man who is barely a man, one who has been reduced to a boy with the overwhelming fear that’s consuming his heart.
Dean doesn’t even remember to rip the keys out of the ignition, just launches himself out of the car and into the snow so fast that he loses his footing and falls to his knees. The following scramble back to his feet would be comical, if not for the way Dean is gasping for breath, his eyes wild and rabid as a wayward animal.
His brother’s name is falling from his lips like a prayer. Dean doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, just knows that everything in him is screaming—Sam, Sam, Sam—and the terror is rolling over him in waves—Sam, Sam, Sam—and he feels his brother with every kick-drum beat of his heart—Sam, Sam, Sam—and he just needs him to be okay.
Dean slams through the front door with the force of a wrecking ball. Stumbling to a stop, he takes a moment and tries to gather his bearings, chest working hard as his lungs try desperately to pull in the air he needs.
One glance around tells him that Sam’s not in the living room anymore. The fire’s still going, is a little low but not so low that it hasn’t been tended to within the last hour. There’s the blanket that Sam had been under when Dean had left, haphazardly folded over on the opposite side of the couch as if Sam had tossed it aside as he stood up. His book is on the coffee table, that old Kleenex still sticking out of the top as a makeshift bookmark.
Spinning around, Dean’s eyes scour the floor in front of the doorway. Salt line is a thick, solid line of white, completely untouched. The nerves that are singeing Dean’s skin calm, but only by a little.
Sam, Sam, Sam.
He just needs to see his fucking brother.
“Sammy?” Dean calls out, starting down the hall towards the bedrooms. His pulse is a deafening thud in his ears. No reply.
The bathroom door is ajar. Dean pushes it open slowly, the hinges creaking ominously as it reveals a dark, humid room with a fogged mirror. The shower curtain is drawn across the tub and the tiles on the floor are wet. Okay, so Sam took a shower. That’s one thing to do to pass the time.
Now that he’s actually back in the cabin, Dean’s starting to feel a bit silly. If he’d be the one at home and Sam had come busting in, guns blazing, yelling his name, he probably would have shit himself and then never let Sammy live it down.
A part of him desperately wants to believe that he’s overreacting, that it really isn’t that big of a deal, that it’s the overactive mind of a hunter getting the better of him. Another part of him, the one that raises the hair on the back of his neck and makes him look twice over his shoulder, knows better.
Stepping back out into the hall, Dean cranes his neck to get a look at the bedroom doors at the end of the hallway. Only one of the doors is open. The one to his room. Sam’s door is closed.
“Sam?” Dean tries again, making sure his voice doesn’t crack this time. “You in there?”
Four more steps and his toes are practically against Sam’s door. There’s light spilling out from underneath the wood, but no reply. No other signs of life. No Sam.
The fear bubbles over tenfold, driving Dean’s hand to the doorknob, twisting it and pushing open as he calls out, “Sammy, if you’re butt naked, you better throw somethin’ on, ‘cause I’m comin’ in.”
Dean was hoping for an embarrassed yelp, or a shout of rage or shame, or a bored, “Oh, it’s you again”. Dean was ready to take a fist to the chin or a pack of cards to the forehead or even the pot from the kitchen whipped at his chest. Dean was praying to see his little brother, all nine thousand feet of him, sprawled out on a too-small mattress with his feet hanging over the edge and his moth-eaten socks swinging carelessly against the floor.
What Dean got was silence.
What Dean got was an empty room.
Whatever remaining warmth that was left in his blood runs cold. Dean’s already fast breathing doubles in pace, bringing him to near hyperventilation as he turns in a full circle once, twice, three times, unable to register the fact that Sam isn’t here.
Sam isn’t here.
Closet doors get ripped open. Curtains yanked aside. Kitchen cupboards. The shower curtain. Anything and everything that could possibly be a hiding spot in some fucked up prank designed to throw Dean into massive heart failure at the age of twenty is searched, scavenged, scoured.
Sam isn’t here.
The edges of Dean’s vision are starting to go dark and the tripwire pulse pounding in his ears turns into a high-pitched ringing.
Sam isn’t here.
Dean can barely keep his balance, has to slump into the wall by the front entryway to keep upright after tearing every room in this goddamn place apart, and that’s when he notices. That’s when he sees that Sam’s boots aren’t by the door.
A choked moan rumbles out of Dean’s throat before he wrenches open the front door and stumbles out onto the front porch.
“SAM!” Dean bellows, hands cupped around his mouth, and he can hear his voice echoing through the bare trees that surround their cabin. Dusk has settled into a dark grey slate above his head, but it isn't dark enough that the scraggly branches of the woods don’t look like ominous black fingers scratching the sky.
He breaks into a dead run, tearing around the side of the cabin, passing the shed and the stump where they’d been chopping wood earlier that afternoon. The axe is right where they left it, its sharp metal head buried deep in the center ring of the stump, its handle jutting up towards the sky and dusted with the white of the most recent snowfall.
That’s what makes Dean skid to a halt. Because just beyond the snow-covered handle, Dean can see the path of a pair of footprints trailing away from the cabin.
Into the woods. Alone.
Excuses could be made. False reasonings. Sam had been bored and wanted to explore. No. He would never be so stupid. Not in a new location, not by himself, not an hour before dark with the fire still going and the door unlocked. Not with Dean gone. Not with how their family works, with the constant fear that one of them won’t come back home or won’t be there when they return. Sam would never.
But Dean would. Dean did. He left Sam, left him behind, left him alone, watch out for Sammy.
Except he didn’t.
He failed.
He failed, and something had happened. Something bad.
Dean had always thought that his love for his brother was going to kill him. But right then, right there in the fading light of the coldest winter day, Dean Winchester stares into the trees and realizes that his love for his brother had done something worse than that; it had killed Sam.