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“Pull over."
Sam's been quiet in the passenger seat for so long that his voice makes Dean jump. "It lives," he says gently, letting his white-knuckled grip loosen on the steering wheel. They're driving up the California coastline, Pacific stretched out over the horizon to their left. The sun is just starting to set and the world is painted by fire. It's a beautiful day, balmy, and the breeze from the coast is fresh on Dean's face. He looks over at Sam. "You okay?"
Sam is staring out over the ocean, expression unreadable. "Yeah, just pull over up here." He points to a spot just ahead where the shoulder widens up against the guardrail. Dean eases the car over with barely enough room to open his door.
Sam gets out of the car without a word and climbs over the rail into the low foliage on the other side. Dean leans out the window and calls after his brother, "You going to take a leak or something?"
Sam looks back at Dean over his shoulder, the bottom half of his body already obscured by bushes as he picks down the gentle slope towards the coast. He's grinning. "Come on," he says, and then he turns back to the hill and continues climbing down the rocks.
Dean gets out of the Impala and stumbles after his brother. "Hey, Sammy! Wait up." His jeans snag on low branches. "You're gonna break your damn neck!" He sidles over a big rock and scares the shit out of a fox on the other side. It bolts into the underbrush. "Jesus," he curses under his breath. Sam's already halfway down the ridge.
Dean's lungs are heaving when he finally catches up to his little brother at the bottom. There's a narrow slip of sandy beach down here. The waves beat against the rocks of the cliffside all along the shore in the distance to the north. Dean whistles low in his throat. "Whoa," he says.
Sam kicks his shoes off and rolls the bottoms of his jeans up his skinny shins. He turns and regards Dean, shrugging. "We never have, you know," he says, "gotten in the water. Not the Pacific, anyway." Dean takes in a breath, mouth pulled into a frown. Sam's face falls, too. "I just thought…"
Dean bends and starts to untie his laces. "You're right, Sammy. We never have."
The water is cold even in early August. Dean shivers when the waves first crest over his toes in the sand, but Sam just splashes in, up to his knees and soaking through his jeans in seconds. He whoops, loud and vibrant in the late afternoon air. A car passes overhead; Dean can hear the quiet rush of tires, but when he looks back, he can't see the road at all. "Come on, Dean!" Sam yells back to him over the wind and the waves. Sea birds circle overhead and Dean wishes he had a camera. Sam looks so young, all of twelve years old, and exhilarated. Dean wants to hold this image in the chambers of his heart, but his pulse just carries it along; time is cruel that way.
He wades out and yelps when seaweed brushes against his ankle. Sam lets out a high, joyous bark of laughter. "You're such a baby," he says, so Dean kicks water in his face.
They splash around in the shallows, getting thoroughly soaked. By the time they crash exhausted and sweaty into the sand, Dean has fallen face-first into the water twice.
Dean takes his wet shirt off and bunches it under his head, staring up at big white clouds as the sun sinks behind them and turns the sky to cotton candy. The warmth from the sand and the sun feels good on his skin. Sam does the same beside him.
"Thanks for stopping," Sam says after a while. Long, warm shadows fall across his face.
"No problem, kiddo," Dean answers. "We get to set our own hours without Dad around."
Dean feels his brother stiffen beside him, and he kicks himself mentally. He changes the subject. "Think there's dolphins out here?"
Sam relaxes into the sand and shifts one arm under his head. His shoulder bumps Dean’s. "Oh, yeah. There's like ten different species in this part of the Pacific."
Dean snorts and turns his face to his brother, lifting his hand to shade his eyes from the sun. Sam's skin is golden and unblemished down the long line of his neck and skinny chest. Dean could count his ribs if he wanted to. "You're such a nerd. Why do you know that?"
Sam laughs and his head turns until they're looking at each other. "I dunno," he says. "I just know stuff."
Dean's heart catches in his throat. Sam's hair shines in the sun, just like everything else about him. Dean levers his body forward until he's sitting upright. "Come on. We should go. "
He begins to stand, but Sam's fingers are soft at his elbow, stilling him. "We don't have to be there tonight," he says. His voice is even softer than his touch. "Let's stay a little longer. We can crash at a motel."
Dean sighs. His shoulders round forward. Sam's grip on his elbow tightens. "Please, Dean?"
Dean swallows. He looks out over the horizon. The first stars are just starting to blink into existence above them. It's beautiful. He settles back into the sand. "Okay, Sam."
They end up at a little motel just a few minutes north up the highway. It’s late when they get in, almost midnight. They’d stayed and watched the stars for so long that Dean thought Sam had fallen asleep, but he’d sat up at last—muscles shifting as he stretched his long limbs out—and Dean had followed him up the hill to the car without a word – just the crashing of the waves at their backs.
Dean is so tired—as exhausted as he can ever remember being—but he can't sleep. Every time he closes his eyes there’s an absence that aches inside him and he can’t will it away. He lies on his mattress and stares up at the ceiling, watches the occasional beam of headlights pass across his vision as a car rumbles past. He wonders where the strangers inside are headed.
He sighs in frustration and shifts again.
“Can’t sleep?” Sam whispers in the dark. Dean can just make out the curve of his back silhouetted in the light from the window. He’s got his arms tucked under his pillow.
“This mattress sucks,” Dean says. “I can't get comfortable.” The lie is easy.
Sam shifts under his blankets, scoots over to the far side of the bed. He pulls the covers up and holds them there. “Come on,” he says. “Mine’s awesome.”
Dean hesitates. He can’t remember the last time they slept in the same bed together, but Sam just keeps holding the blankets up and looking at him. Dean slips out of his bed and slides in beside Sam. The mattress is warm from where his brother’s body’s been pressed into it, but it feels the same under him as the one he just climbed out of. “This is better,” he says.
“Told you,” Sam breathes.
They lie still like that for a long time, miles of space between them. Dean starts to cry. His throat works over all the words he can’t bring himself to say. They press against his windpipe with a terrible weight.
Sam curls into him slowly, every inch an eon. He tips his forehead against Dean’s shoulder and his nose brushes over the bare skin just under the hem of Dean’s sleeve. His breath is warm, pulls steady from his lungs. A tear tracks down Dean’s cheek in the dark.
Dean falls asleep with his hands fisted into the blanket to keep from reaching out, and when he wakes the next morning, his fingers ache.
They get back on the road not long after dawn and now the sun is creeping up through the passenger window. Sam is like a ghost in the gauzy light, hollow in the middle and haloed in gold. They’ve barely spoken. Sam is pushed into the passenger door, eyes on a book that Dean knows he's not reading. Tall, bowing palm trees flash by the windows. The world takes on the quality of a flip book as their shadows flicker through the car, each image slipping away into the past before Dean’s fingers can reach out and stop them.
Neither one of them is hungry, so they don’t stop for breakfast. Dean wishes he had lied, stuffed his face full of bacon and eggs until he was sick just to sit there across from his brother with his boring black coffee, trying to make him laugh one more time.
The miles fly by. He senses several times that Sam wants to open his mouth and break the silence, but he never does. Dean doesn't know if it's better or worse that way.
They pull up at their destination just after ten. Dean’s hands fall from the steering wheel like they weigh a thousand pounds. His chest burns. He’s afraid to look at Sammy in the passenger seat.
Sam reaches his long arm out and pats the dashboard, just once. Dean’s breath catches in his throat.
“Dean,” Sam says, and Dean turns to face his brother. Sam’s eyes are wide, wavering with emotion. Kids walk past the window behind him carrying heavy boxes. Sam reaches into the backseat and grabs his duffel, a backpack.
Dean looks at his brother's mouth, the slight wetness of it. He swallows. Sam leans in to hug him, and it hurts far more than it heals. They might never have this again. It’s the last act of aching men. When Sam pulls back, he hovers too close for too long. His breath puffs out hot and scared over Dean’s mouth. Then he's gone; he takes the sun with him.
Dean is alone in the car. He remembers the first time he was old enough to drive his baby brother to school. They were in Oregon. He remembers pulling up into the parking lot at the end of the day and seeing Sam at the curb, waiting in the cold. He remembers Sam’s easy smile.
Dean Winchester drives away from Stanford. Every chance he’d ever missed spills out over the road behind him, and he doesn’t look back. There won’t be anyone waiting at the curb for him this time.